Tuesday, September 3, 2013

2Dye4 Tuesday: Immersion Dyeing with Kool-Aid and Food Coloring


So lately I've been itching to try my hand at dyeing my own yarn. I really want to try acid dyes, but I thought that before I spent a bunch of money on the dyes and pots to use since once you use acid dyes the pots should not be used for food again, I decided to start out with some stuff I had around the house just to make sure I liked it.  



I want to make the E.L.F. Cap by Kendra Nitta from The Unofficial Harry Potter Knits from Interweave. I have been having some trouble finding yarn for it that wont cost me an arm and a leg, as it only uses small amounts of each of the different colors.  I figured I could dye my own using 50g skeins of Premier Yarns Serenity Sock Weight and Lion Brand Sock Ease (100g skein split in half) for a fraction of the cost of the yarn the pattern calls for. 


I used different combinations of Kool-Aid and regular food coloring to achieve the colors I was looking for. For example, this purple is a mixture of Iced Blue Raspberry Lemonade and Watermelon Kool- Aid and red and blue food coloring. 


The orange is just red and yellow food coloring. 


Overall, I had a lot of fun and I'm in love with the results!  I can't wait to do more, I'm going to try some different techniques and dyes. Have you ever tried hand dyeing?  How did it go?



No comments:

Post a Comment