In this tutorial, I am dyeing Cascade 220 wool yarn with Kool-Aid. Any 100% wool yarn will work. You can also use any animal fibers (alpaca, mohair, angora, et cetera). Why only yarns with animal proteins? Because only protein fibers will accept the acids of the vinegar & the Kool-Aid. Yarns with other fibers may stain a slight color, but the results aren’t very hot & are usually NOT permanant.

What you will need:

After soaking the skeins for a half hour (with a few drops of dish detergent & a cup of vinegar in the water to help the yarn accept the dyes) I laid out the untwisted skeins on two garbage bags (I was out of plastic wrap, haha)..


I mixed up my colors (2 packets per cup- in photo are Strawberry, Lemon-Lime, & Watermelon cherry.. later I mixed 2 packets of Orange to fill in some of the white spots) with a few tablespoons of water. I think I should have used more Kool-Aid, this yarn was super absorbent so the other sides of the skeins had some white patches that I later applied another color to. I’m afraid this is where I left off with pictures because I was the only one here when I was doing this & I got too caught up in it to care about pictures- but after mixing the colors, I used medicine syringes to hand paint the colors in stripes & splotches.
Once I had used up all my color/Kool-Aid (I used a total of 8 packets on about 8 ounces of white yarn & I think I could have yet used another two more!) I then folded over the sides of the bags/plastic over the yarn- then rolled them up. I placed both skeins in a 8-inch square Pyrex baking dish & nuked them for 2 minutes. I let them sit for 2 minutes, then zapped them again for a final 2 minutes. The dye will be clear at the bottom of the bag/dish when all is absorbed into the yarn. Be careful using the microwave method & be sure to be near the microwave, yarn singes!

Next I poured the yarn into a strainer over a pot for all the water/dye to drain until the yarn cooled. Once the yarn was about room temp, I rinsed it out very well in water the same temp as the yarn.

Then I hung the skeins on hangers in my laundry room to dry & finally would them up into these pretty balls

Finished results! The colors are gorgeous hot & light pinks, orange/peach/yellow, & shades of green- reminds me of summer fruits- delicious!

For a good example of what all the flavors/colors look like on the yarn, check out this cool chart at The Piper.

(I apologize about the awfulness of the pictures, they were taken back in 07.05 with a Sony Cybershot )

Posted in crafts, kid crafts, yarn & written by Niki —