Turquoise and Red

Based on the comments from my last post about yarn, I decided to try a combination of turquoise and red.  (Thanks Fenna!)  I dyed two balls of yarn using red kool-aid, blue kool-aid, and a little bit of lemonade.  It is amazing how the same colors can turn out so different!  For the first ball of yarn I started with two packets of red.  The red is a very strong tinter, and sort of overpowered the batch.  I dyed the remaining white parts with two packets of blue.  It turned out with a primarily red yarn with a few purple bits, and some bright blue bits.

For the second ball of yarn I started with two packets of blue.  The blue ended up much lighter than the first batch but covered more of the yarn.  Then I added one packet of red in an attempt to not overpower the blue.  I ended up with a lot of white space left over.  I added a packet of lemonade, but it still turned out very light (especially in comparison to the first batch.)

In other news, my yarn is now on sale at Crafty Goodness in Lakewood, Ohio!  Stop on by and take a look at all the good stuff available from NE-Ohio artists.  Also, check them out on facebook.

New Dyed Yarn

I recently dyed two more skeins of yarn using Kool-Aid.  (See my previous post for information about the dyeing process.)  The first skein started as white 100% wool and was dyed using Strawberry, Orange, Lime, and Lemonade.  The result is a bright, tropical, tutti-frutti kind of color.

The second skein was a gray 100% wool skein dyed with Strawberry, Grape, Ice Blue Raspberry, and Pink Lemonade.  Using gray yarn as a base created a muted color palette for the finished yarn.  My next experiment will be using tan yarn as a base for dyeing.  Any suggestions for color choices?  What has been your favorite Kool-Aid dyed yarn so far?

Kool-Aid Yarn

A couple weeks ago I spent the day dyeing yarn in my crock pot with Kool-Aid. I have used this technique before, and wanted to share! I started my experiments last year after seeing this tutorial from the do stuff! blog. The idea is to use a crock pot as the dye vessel instead of a pot of boiling water on the stove. Dyeing yarn this way is easy, but it takes some patience... and is highly addicting!
For this skein I used pink lemonade, black cherry, ice blue raspberry lemonade, orange, and two packets of lemonade.
This was my first attempt from a year ago. I followed the article's instructions closely, down to the color/flavor choices (although I might have used cherry instead of strawberry.)
My next dyed skein used strawberry, grape, and orange. Blending colors closer together in the color wheel produced a more subtle variegated yarn. The orange and grape worked well to create a less intense color. I used this yarn to knit a slip stitch lace scarf.