Dyeing Experiment #1

Several years ago I ordered 3, 440 yd skeins of bare superwash merino from KnitPicks and entertained dreams of dyeing it a rainbow of colors and making socks. Until recently, the yarn continued to sit, undyed, in my stash, just as the sock patterns continued to sit, not yet started, in my ravelry queue. Then, last Friday, for no apparent reason, I felt an unquenchable urge: MUST DYE YARN. MUST DYE YARN WITH KOOL AID.

Inspired by this post and the pattern for Arisaig I turned to a few friends who are good with color. I was thinking of trying to match the purple of the original, or perhaps something totally different, such as bright green of fiery orange. Despite the overwhelming advice to the contrary, the paucity of kool aid left me with the following color choices: orange, 2 types of red, yellow, and pink. So, fiery orange it is!

Step 1: wash and soak yarn.

Step 2: prepare dye bath (open kool aid and dump into large pot)

Step 3: Add yarn. Bring to simmer, lower heat and wait until all dye is absorbed (water will be clear)

Just after I added the yarn

After about 15 min of cooking. See the clear water?

I tried using 1 oz to every 100yd of yarn and ended up with something that looked like salmon pink rather than fiery orange. So I ran back out to the store and picked up a bunch of packets of black cherry, orange, cherry, and pink lemonade, and added about 9 more packets of dye.

Step 4: Squeeze in a towel to remove water and hang to dry.

End results:

I'm really happy with the color. It's more variegated than you can see from these photos, but despite the advice to the contrary, I like the bright color w/ my dark hair.

Extreme close up:

And if it looks like crap in the pattern I can always overdye with dark reds and have yet another red sweater.

Speaking of hair, the new 'do. so happy with it I think I'm actually going to keep it this length for a while. L doesn't even remember the last time I said that.