A Good Day to Dye

On Saturday the Kool-aid fountain at my house was flowing and the fiber was flying. Me and 8 of my knitting friends all took turns dyeing our yarn, eating really yummy food, and causing general color mayhem. I think I'll just comment on the pictures because as they say, they're worth 1,000 words and I can't top that.

First off, this is the very cute puff pastry that Wendy brought for us. It was almost too cute to eat. But we did.

First we lined up our inventory and took stock of what we had. Chris, very generously, drank all of the water out of all the water bottles in her house so she could put together this for us to use to mix. Every flavor of Kool-aid we could get our hands on in the San Diego area.


Anna went first. She had searched far and wide for the elusive Tamarindo Kool-aid and was determined to get the color she was after.


We had a lot of trouble getting the Tamarindo to mix correctly. It was very gloppy and goopy and the result below was after three different dye sets. I think it turned out great and was totally worth it.

Chris had used the warping board to set up her yarn for self-striping. Then after much mixing and decision-making Chris went with Green, Blue and Red stripes. She was definitely the mix master of the day.


Suzanne had a definite blue theme to her dying. She left my house with two blue hanks of yarn, and one blue finger. The one on the left was done with a little more purple in it and the one on the right was done with different shades of blue and had a lot of depth to it.

Wendy just went for it with a few colors she mixed and ended up with some absolutely beautiful results. One hank looked like a tie-dye throwback from the 60s. The other she just sprinkled with dry Kool-aid and got a wonderful flecked look.

Here's the proud mama displaying her creations.

Robin did a bulky weight yarn with some blue, purple and green in it. It reacted completely different to the Kool-aid then the fingering weight yarn and she ended up with a very cool watercolor effect. The one on the left is the hot tamale with yellow, orange and red.

It was so much fun sharing this experience with some really fun friends. Here are a few of the hanks trying to dry in the not so hot November sun.

My best B spent the night and the next morning we got up to do just one more thing. This past year we went to see Wicked at the San Diego Civic Theater. We went out to dinner, went to the play and it was a wonderful evening. So we decided we needed some Wicked self-striping sock yarn to commemorate the occasion.

We mixed some Chartreuse, Lilac, and Black and cooked it up. It came out so cool, that I might just have to drop every other project I have on the needles and knit this up as soon as it is dry. I just don't know if I could hold out.

The other yarn I made is more for my husband because he is a Kansas City Chiefs Fan. These are their colors and I think they turned out really nice.

The finished results. I'm totally addicted to this stuff.