Dyeing Wool with Kool-Aid

It was a rainy Sunday afternoon and we decided to embark on a yarn dying adventure. With Kool-Aid brought by friends visiting from the States and instructions from the Internet, we were ready.

I had two small hanks (a third is staying its natural color, for now) from the local yarn store, Vibes & Scribes, that were a natural oatmeal hue so we chose colors that would work with that instead of add to its browness. In the end, we opted to dye each hank a different color. We also added a small mini hank of natural ‘white’ Aran wool from Kerry Woolen Mills to each batch so we would have a true color sample to associate with the combination. We dyed three batches total and the results were a fun afternoon with deliciously colorful yarn.

We opted to use one and a half packets of cherry for one oatmeal hank and one packet grape and half of cherry for the other oatmeal hank. Knowing these would then be used together for a project, I took two teaspoons of the grape liquid and added it to one side of the cherry mixture then took two teaspoons of the cherry liquid and added it to the grape mixture. Each bowl then received 1/4-cup of distilled white vinegar to help set the dye. We stirred gently but throughly. Before all this we had soaked the yarn in tepid water for a few minutes then drained the tepid water and lightly wrung the yarn of excess moisture. Having the wool already wet helps it absorb water more quickly so when it is added to the Kool-Aid bowl it knows what to do. Each hank was added to its own bowl and microwaved for five minutes each. After microwaving, the liquid in each bowl magically changed to clear! Right after removing from the microwave, each bowl was put under the sink facet with running cold water to lower the temperature of the wool and rinse. We then draped each hank over a coat hanger and hung them over bowls (which rested atop layers of newspaper and old dishtowels) to make sure no drippings stained the floor. The wool was hung to dry in a well-ventilated room and dried within 24 hours.

It was so much fun, I grabbed a ball (turned it into a hank with Suzi’s infinite patience) of terra-cotta-hued wool that I wanted to give a punch of color and repeated the process with a packet of cherry and a packet of orange. Interestingly, using just cherry results in a pinkish red color, but using cherry and orange results in a bright orange hue.

Dying the yarn was just as much for fun as for the resulting colors.