Last year we boiled dye on the stove, and threw the yarn into the pot. Well....I put the yarn into the boiling water and added the dye, and some of the powder worked directly into the yarn, making it a dark royal purple in some spots. This year my mom (who came with us) found a great website that had a formula table on ratios of Kool-Aid flavors in order to achieve the color that you wanted your yarn to be. Also, I spent some time on Pinterest and found a website that showed how to make your yarn look like it had been kettle-dyed using a casserole dish instead of a pot on the stove.
First, the yarn has to soak for half an hour. We piled all of our yarns up in Kristina's sink for a group soak.
After that we worked in groups, since there's only four burners on the stove. Before long, the whole house smelled like Kool-Aid, sweet and fruity. It was awesome. :)
I had purchased two skeins of fingering-weight wool/silk blend for this. After doing some perusing, I decided on a 5:1 ratio of Pink Lemonade and Black Cherry. Meet "Cherry Lemonade!" I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this yet, there's 720 yards so I'm thinking a lace shawl.
Warning: yarn dyeing is addictive. Kristina let me have two skeins of wool that she wasn't using (Thank you, Kristina!) so I decided to dye them blue. I used five parts berry blast to one part grape. Say hello to "Surf's Up!" It's about 400 yards of worsted weight yarn....perhaps a sweater for Sean.
Mom used some fingering weight merino wool and a packet each of lemon-lime and orange, the yarn turned this lovely kiwi color. She loves it, and is going to use the 800 yards or so to make a swanky shawl.
All of our yarns hanging to dry in the shower.....so pretty together.
What a fun day! I'm going to get some more bare yarn at the New England Fiber Festival in November, hopefully we can do this as an annual event. And hmmmm....I think I might have just found the way that I am going to dye Easter Eggs next year.
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