Knit Post Put Elsewhere

[liralen]

Posted my Kool-Aid® dyeing and sock adventure to knitting, in case anyone wants to see the COLORS! Hee.

Comments

[archangelbeth]

So cool!

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Thank you! It was a bit like dyeing Easter eggs. Hee.

[neko-san.livejournal.com]

wow, very neat! and i hadn't seen the "inject dye into ball" technique before; that looks so cool too.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

I am hoping that it will turn into one or two stitches of each color at a time, so it'll just be thousands of spots of individual color over the socks. :-) The color lengths look short enough.

[aelfsciene.livejournal.com]

Those are absolutely marvelous; I'm amazed by the colors in the "Monet" ball, and absolutely love how Jet's socks worked up.

I remember dyeing my hair with Kool-Aid many, many years ago--clearly I'll have to try yarn someday!

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Hee! Protein/animal fibers! Did it work very well on your hair? I'd imagine it could, if enough heat were applied. Interesting to think about.

[foomf.livejournal.com]

I'm still curious about how well that would work, not to mention, do the dyes also make the socks tasty?

You nuke them - does that take the place of a chemical mordant?
How colorfast ARE they? Do you end up with stained carpets if the shoes get wet?

[liralen.livejournal.com]

No sugar. So the kids didn't think they were tasty, but they did smell fruity for a while! :-)

It worked amazingly well. The acid in the drinks themselves made it very much like an good, old acid dye for protein fibers. Lots of recipes seem to call for vinager, but I didn't need them. When we put an ounce of fiber with a packet of drink, ALL of it exhausted, which meant that the water turned completely clear (other than for the purple, I think which turned a milky white) and none of the color leached out.

I washed the skeins in warm water and soap afterwards and no color came out at all, so no, wet socks won't leave tracks. :-)

I know it's not light fast, but it's color fast and that's good enough for me and socks that live in drawers or shoes.

[jilara.livejournal.com]

I've always loved kool-aid dying. I need to get more back into fibre arts (in my, hah, copious free time). We sometimes have trouble getting the blue raspberry stuff, though.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think that the blue raspberry is discontinued. The Berry Blue Twist, though, seems commonly available, though I'd nearly call it turquoise... still, mixed with the purple it would be cool.