I’ve been dyeing to try this…
OK, so you must forgive me the horrible (and utterly predictable) pun. I ordered some Knit Picks yarn specifically to try my hand at some Kool Aid dyeing, and Tuesday, Jen and I hit the Giant to pick up some Kool Aid. This is what followed.
The unsuspecting yarn and Kool Aid: 
Following the lovely instructions in this article on Knitty, I washed my Wool of the Andes, and left it to soak. 
While I prepped the pot of Black Cherry Kool Aid. 
The yarn was added to the pot, where it hung out, nice and hot, for about 20 minutes, going from this: 
To this: 
I rinsed it and wrung it out, and then hung it to dry. 
One key thing I learned during this – gloves are not optional. 
At least I remembered my apron.
I couldn’t leave well enough alone, so I had to try doing some handpainted yarn, too. I broke out the Paint Your Own laceweight, and mixed up some Cherry, Pink Lemonade, Orange, Lemonade and Grape Kool Aid. 
I popped it into the microwave for a few minutes: 
, rinsed it off, 
, and hung it up to dry. 
While the yarn was drying, I cleaned up the mess from the handpainting 
, and waited.
A few minutes with my swift and winder, and TA DA! 
(Considerably less blurry in real life.) I immediately cast on the black cherry yarn for a One Skein Wonder. After realizing that I was going to run out of yarn before I did the edging, I ran to AC Moore and picked up some ladder ribbon yarn for the edging and finished it tonight. 
I’m really thrilled with how it turned out. I love the sort-of variegated nature of the Kool-Aid dye. I’m planning to turn the laceweight into a Lacey. We’ll see how that goes.
