Kool-aid and yarn = project.

I mentioned this project in one of my summer posts and said "more on that later." Well now that it is much much much later, I am posting on it. I found this great book at MSD (Mustard Seed Dreams, yes, that very same store that I mention ALL the time. From now on I will refer to it as you guessed it MSD.)

The book was all about teaching kids about knitting.  It had sections in it on the history of knitting, spinning, and weaving.  As well as the regional and national variations in knitting styles.  Really cool stuff even to non-knitters.  The section that I most fell in love with and what ultimately made me buy the book was the section called "Sheep to Shawl."  It describes the process of shearing, carding, combing, spinning, dying and packaging fiber.  Then it gave instructions for dying you own yarn with Kool-Aid!  Yes, packets of kool-aid!  You know I had to try it.  Noah was my helper.  He was excited to mix colors and  see if intensity of color could be changed by the number of packets used.  He picked the colors/flavors, and couldn't wait to get started.  We got the book in early summer and had to wait for the hot days in July to do this project as the heat from the sun was neccessary for the project to work.  He hated waiting and suggested we just make the kool-aid and drink it so we "wouldn't waste it".  I told him that if we drank 25 packets worth of kool-aid in less than a month it would be our insides not the yarn that turned a different color.

This is the yarn and the colors that we chose.  The yarn

was 100% wool.  It had to be a natural fiber to be able to absorb the dye.  We mixed the kool-aid with some vinegar and warm water and added the yarn.  We divided our skeins of yarn into small bundles so we could make more colors.  The vinegar acts as a "mordant" or a dye setter to make the color permanent.

Once the yarn was in the jar, we set it out in the sun to "bake."  The instructions were to let the yarn sit untill all the color was pulled into the yarn.  If you have ever put yarn into a jar with 4 packages of green kool-aid to 3ish cups water you will think to yourself.  Yeah right all that color will be absorped .  But it was so cool! The color really did pull into the yarn leaving the yarn green and the water around it clear.  I mean crystal clear.  You would never have known that it started out as yarn soup.  I forgot I was documenting the process at that moment and did not take a picture of the green before I dumped it out for rinsing.  So you will have to settle for the pink, which did pull the dye but the water for some reason was cloudy. 

Then you rinse the yarn until the water runs clear.  My WHOLE house smelled like fruit punch and my hands smelled fruity for 3 days.  Noah lost interest at this point and I spent forever doing this part on my own.  Typical.

Our rinsed yarn hanging in the sun to dry.  I put some of the undyed yarn up with it so you could see the starting point from the finished product.

All done and ready to be used.  Noah wants to make a scarf or a hat with the yarn for Lauren.  I am going to teach him how to use one of those knitting looms this winter to make that happen.  I will let you know when he gets that started.  It might be a little bit like this project.  Start big, fizzle out in the middle and let mom take care of the finishing.  But I'm going to try and keep him motivated.  I need to check his scouting requirements and see if there is anything this could count for.