Dyeing Darker Yarn (I did it!)

[Tiggzie]

I'm so excited!

 

I had tons of this grey-green 100% wool yarn. I'm talking about 3000 yards or something. It's enough to make a girl see...well, green I decided to try to see if I could get a nice colour from kool-aid dying so I broke one of the smaller skeins (240 yards) in half, made them into hanks, randomly tied ribbon and yarn around some sections, and soaked them in 8 cups of water and 2 cups of vinegar for half an hour. Then I put each one in a tupperware container and nuked them with the cherry/orange kool aid for one and grape kool aid for the other. This is what I got:

 

The yarn is a bit darker than it shows here, especially the green one. My batteries died and I managed to take three last pictures so I had to make do with these hehe.

 

Before

 

After!

 

 

The yarn didn't get dyed under the bits of ribbon and yarn I tied leaving the original green colour intact underneath at different lengths. They look so pretty! I wish I had taken better pics and pics of the green affect. I will next time.

 

This yarn is on it's way to being a felted bag.

[Catana]

So pretty! I don't think I would have had the courage to use so much of the yarn for each test. I did a test swatch of some grey tweedy silk, and dyed it reddish, so now I know I can go ahead with the rest. Kool-Aid is fun!

[Tiggzie]

Hehe yeah. My mum asked me "Jess, what would have done if it felted or turned into a really ugly colour or something?"

"Well it could be used as monster hair or as art on canvas, or cut strips to use as fringe, or--"

"Okay Jess."

"Or put it in a clear bowl as a display, or felted the whole thing, or made a cozy for my water bottle, or made a dishcloth, or used it to make finger puppets, or..." She walked away from me at that point.

[Catana]

Hmmm. Sounds like mum just doesn't understand these things. Maybe that's why we all spend so much time at C'ville.

[Montana Mommy]

Wow! Nice job!

[Bullygrl]

I'm especially surprised that the red turned out so red! I would have figured it for being more of a brown tone. Your results are very inspiring!

 

As an aside to mum, there are no ugly colors! :-)

 

Jean

[dudleyspinner]

Koolaid is so much fun! Looking good

Deb

[carrieanne]

Wow, the colors turned out really nice. Good job!