every time i think of you, i dye a litte
Oct. 19th, 2008 09:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mouse_rantsand man, is it fun!
i have made my first foray into kool-aid (or more properly, drink mix) dyeing, and found it to be very easy, and much fun.
i was much impressed with mr. meddler's multiple-mason jar method (and the alliteration is irresistible), and (since i wanted to compare and contrast effects of various colors), was determined to try it. so yesterday, i rummaged through my recycling pile and various cabinets, found some jars, put them in the dishwasher to free them of pickle-juice residue, and went out to do my errands, anticipating an afternoon of dyeing...only to come home many hours later to find there had been a power failure in my absence, and the dishes were unwashed. (i know that there was a power failure and the dishwasher hadn't just gone on strike because the new appliances flash 'pf' instead of '12:00'...although it took me a few minutes to figure out what 'pf' meant). so i reset all the clocks, set the dishwasher going again, and decided i couldn't contain my impatience. so i decided to try the microwave and pyrex baking dish method.
when i bought the drink mixes, i found that in addition to kool-aid, a disney-produced drink mixed called 'cool splashers' was available...and a few pennies cheaper. so i bought a selection of each. i also provided myself with a couple of skeins of bare super-wash yarn from knit-picks. these are 100 gr skeins, about 4 oz, so i used 4 packets/skein. for the first batch, i used cool splasher's cherry:
you will notice that some bits are sort of sticking out of the bath - this was deliberate, i wanted some variety in the color. you should also notice the color of the liquid surrounding the yarn. (and if you want to experiment yourself - i first soaked washed the yarn with a little baby shampoo (i don't keep no fancy hand-washing stuff) and rinsed it out.)
it would probably have been a good idea to put on gloves before i pushed the yarn into the water:
put the thing in the microwave for 2 bouts of 2 minutes, separated by a 2-minute rest, checking each time to see if the liquid was clear (thus showing complete absorption of the dye by the yarn). and much to my surprise, that actually happened:
let the yarn cool, rinsed it out well (and absolutely no color came off)...and then decided to try something a friend said a friend of hers had tried: i sprinkled some dry mix onto the yarn, so as to make little speckles (using black cherry kool-aid). the yarn seemed rather dry after i rinsed it and squeezed it out, so i spritzed it with a little more water. microwaved it for another 2 X 2 minutes and rinsed again, and the color seems to have stayed in (although the pictures i took don't particular show it). draped it over a wire hanger (sorry, joan crawford, but they do have their uses), and hung it out to dry on on the patio (out of the sun, of course):
the darker areas are where i sprinkled the black cherry, although they aren't as solid as they look here.
well, i was so taken with the process that i decided to do the second hank today, this time using the canning jars. i decide to stick with using the microwave to cook them, though, because it was so fast. this time, i decided to compare the two mixes directly.
first, a couple of cool splashers: tropical punch and black cherry:
i was hoping the tropical punch would be blue, given the colors on the packet, but as you see, no such luck (a surprising number of children's drinks would appear to be red). each jar has 1 packet of mix, and about 1/4 of the skein. i put it all in the pie plate to make it easier to handle (the yet-undyed but still wet part of the skein is behind the jars), which turned out to be a good idea - there was quite a bit of water in the pie plate when i took it out of the microwave, i guess driven out of the undyed yarn. same cooking times as before. after rinsing, i went to the kool-aid - black cherry and grape:
as you see, kool-aid's black cherry is much lighter than disney's, which i found interesting. there was also more color left in the baths after the cooking cycle, although that may also have been due to my apparent failure to get the kool-aid well into the yarn - you can see, there are a lot of bare spots left:
once it dries completely, i'll knit a test-swatch and see how it looks - i can always overdye it if i don't like the look. or maybe i could knit my own sock blank, and try some hand-painting.....
i have made my first foray into kool-aid (or more properly, drink mix) dyeing, and found it to be very easy, and much fun.
i was much impressed with mr. meddler's multiple-mason jar method (and the alliteration is irresistible), and (since i wanted to compare and contrast effects of various colors), was determined to try it. so yesterday, i rummaged through my recycling pile and various cabinets, found some jars, put them in the dishwasher to free them of pickle-juice residue, and went out to do my errands, anticipating an afternoon of dyeing...only to come home many hours later to find there had been a power failure in my absence, and the dishes were unwashed. (i know that there was a power failure and the dishwasher hadn't just gone on strike because the new appliances flash 'pf' instead of '12:00'...although it took me a few minutes to figure out what 'pf' meant). so i reset all the clocks, set the dishwasher going again, and decided i couldn't contain my impatience. so i decided to try the microwave and pyrex baking dish method.
when i bought the drink mixes, i found that in addition to kool-aid, a disney-produced drink mixed called 'cool splashers' was available...and a few pennies cheaper. so i bought a selection of each. i also provided myself with a couple of skeins of bare super-wash yarn from knit-picks. these are 100 gr skeins, about 4 oz, so i used 4 packets/skein. for the first batch, i used cool splasher's cherry:
you will notice that some bits are sort of sticking out of the bath - this was deliberate, i wanted some variety in the color. you should also notice the color of the liquid surrounding the yarn. (and if you want to experiment yourself - i first soaked washed the yarn with a little baby shampoo (i don't keep no fancy hand-washing stuff) and rinsed it out.)
it would probably have been a good idea to put on gloves before i pushed the yarn into the water:
put the thing in the microwave for 2 bouts of 2 minutes, separated by a 2-minute rest, checking each time to see if the liquid was clear (thus showing complete absorption of the dye by the yarn). and much to my surprise, that actually happened:
let the yarn cool, rinsed it out well (and absolutely no color came off)...and then decided to try something a friend said a friend of hers had tried: i sprinkled some dry mix onto the yarn, so as to make little speckles (using black cherry kool-aid). the yarn seemed rather dry after i rinsed it and squeezed it out, so i spritzed it with a little more water. microwaved it for another 2 X 2 minutes and rinsed again, and the color seems to have stayed in (although the pictures i took don't particular show it). draped it over a wire hanger (sorry, joan crawford, but they do have their uses), and hung it out to dry on on the patio (out of the sun, of course):
the darker areas are where i sprinkled the black cherry, although they aren't as solid as they look here.
well, i was so taken with the process that i decided to do the second hank today, this time using the canning jars. i decide to stick with using the microwave to cook them, though, because it was so fast. this time, i decided to compare the two mixes directly.
first, a couple of cool splashers: tropical punch and black cherry:
i was hoping the tropical punch would be blue, given the colors on the packet, but as you see, no such luck (a surprising number of children's drinks would appear to be red). each jar has 1 packet of mix, and about 1/4 of the skein. i put it all in the pie plate to make it easier to handle (the yet-undyed but still wet part of the skein is behind the jars), which turned out to be a good idea - there was quite a bit of water in the pie plate when i took it out of the microwave, i guess driven out of the undyed yarn. same cooking times as before. after rinsing, i went to the kool-aid - black cherry and grape:
as you see, kool-aid's black cherry is much lighter than disney's, which i found interesting. there was also more color left in the baths after the cooking cycle, although that may also have been due to my apparent failure to get the kool-aid well into the yarn - you can see, there are a lot of bare spots left:
once it dries completely, i'll knit a test-swatch and see how it looks - i can always overdye it if i don't like the look. or maybe i could knit my own sock blank, and try some hand-painting.....
