Kool-aid, Kool-aid Tastes Great! (and Dyes Great!)

Last week, Cheryl commented on the colourful yarn in the background of my blog, so I figured I’d give you the story of that yarn (and why it is in a sink.)

Several years ago, I was out with Meredith and she said “don’t you want to try dyeing yarn with Kool-Aid” and sadly (as I often do) I dismissed her with a scoff and said “no, not even a little bit.” She (as she always patiently does) said “really, are you sure” and asked me three more times until the inevitable purchase of plain yarn, ready for dyeing. Once I was sold on the idea I was all in and we both began seeking out Kool-aid from our local corner stores and soon had a day of dyeing some yarn with Kool-aid.

Kool-aid is actually well known as a great yarn dye. It is readily available and non-toxic. You can Google Kool-aid yarn to find plenty of instructions, but I think we used the instructions fromKnitty. Knitty is an amazing website filled with incredible patterns and tutorials. I really should spend more of my time on Knitty.

Once we prepared the dye, we laid out our yarn on the table, covered with garbage bags to prevent the inevitable yarn mess. We took turns dropping bits of dye onto the yarn until we had our skeins covered in a beautiful, colourful mess.

Next up the yarn is baked in the microwave oven to help the dye set. My yarn was a mix of bright colours.

Meredith’s yarn was more muted.

After baking, the yarn was rinsed in the sink. I really like how the colours of the yarn looked against the stainless steel background.

After rinsing the yarn was hung out to dry in the sun.

I could have taken countless pictures of the yarn, as I loved how it looked every step along the way.

Once dry, my yarn was knit up into a pair of socks. I loved these socks. They may be my all-time favourite socks. I’m sure it was all in my head, but to me they always smelled somewhat fruity, like a glass of Kool-aid.

Eventually the socks were worn right through, but I wasn’t ready to give up on them so I used the worn out socks, combined with some other wayward bits and pieces to make Cici a toy. She also loved the Kool-aid socks eventually playing with them long and hard enough to bring them to their final death.