Kool-Aid Dying Attempt #1

Last summer FAB and I took a yarn dying class at Kraemer Yarns in Nazareth, PA. We each dyed two skeins of yarn:


FAB's skeins are on the left, mine are on the right. We had a lot of fun that day and both were bitten by the yarn dying bug. I'm not sure if FAB has dyed any more yarn as I haven't seen any pictures (hint, hint, hint). I did purchase some bare yarn from Knit Picks but have yet to dye any of it.

A few months ago (I think there was still snow on the ground) I took a skein of the Bare Sock Yarn and wound it into a cake then taking an end from the middle and an end from the outside and crocheted my own blank. I think I used a size J hook and single crocheted 25 stitches across, turned and single crocheted 25 stitches back until I ran out of yarn.

Until today!!

First things first:


I covered my wood counter top with a heavy duty lawn & leaf bag and secured the edges with blue tape (I love blue tape!).Then I got out my 9" x 9" Pyrex baking dish and put my yarn blank inside with some cold water.


I let the yarn soak for about 20 minutes. Then I poured out the water and gently squeezed out any excess water. I left enough water so that it was still quite moist but not dripping wet. Then I placed it back in the 9" x 9" Pyrex baking dish. My vision for this dying attempt was to make darker areas and lighter areas. So I mixed two packets of Cherry Kool-Aid and approximately 4 tablespoons of water to make a dark concentrate in a glass jar.


Then using a metal spoon I sprinkled about half of the concentrate onto one side of the yarn.

Then, with a rubber glove on I flipped the yarn in the baking dish:


Then sprinkled the remaining concentrate on the other side of the yarn:


I let the yarn sit for a bit because I wanted the concentrated color to really soak into the yarn. I mixed 2 more packages of Cherry Kool-Aid in a mason jar and filled it with water and poured the mix onto the yarn and added more water until the majority of the yarn was covered.

I placed the dish with the yarn into the microwave and cooked it for 2 minutes.

When I took it out and checked the water to see how clear it was I found out that 99% of the dye had been soaked up by the yarn.

From what I have culled from various sources about how to dye yarn, you cook the yarn for 2 minutes - let the mixture rest for a few minutes and then cook it for another 2 minutes until the majority of the dye has been soaked up. In my little experiment this happened just after the first 2 minute cooking time.
At this point I took the yarn (after it had cooled from being zapped in the microwave) to the sink and rinsed the heck out of it. I was still getting some red in the water I was rinsing out of the yarn so I decided to leave it wet (but not dripping) and put it back into the pyrex dish and microwaved it for another 2 minutes. After it had cooled and I rinsed it again I didn't get any color out of the water when I rinsed it.


Now all I have to do is wait for it to dry. I hug it up in my shower over 2 hangers and put a fan on it to speed up the drying time.


It will probably be dry and ready to knit with tomorrow.

Overall I am pretty satisfied with my results, thus far. I'll save my final judgment for after I knit with it. I have knit with hand dyed yarns before and how they look in a skein can be quite different than after it's been knit or crocheted with.

Now, I'm going to go play with a skein of yarn that is still in one big loop. I'm thinking of tying some yarn around some sections so that the yarn under that section won't get much if any dye on it. Maybe I'll use Black Cherry Kool-Aid this time . . .


Edited to add: I would NOT SUGGEST that you crochet two strands of this sock yarn together as I did in this first experiment. It took me HOURS to un-ravel it. It knotted up and fuzzed A LOT and was a major pain. I won't be doing that part of this process again.

Yeah, yeah, yeah . . .

It's JUNE - I KNOW! I would really like to post soon. Actually I'm gonna plan on posting soon. Lots of things have happened since JANUARY - a lot of good and some not so good. Give me a week ok? Luv, Reese

New Year's Resolutions . . . maybe not . . .

I haven't checked . . . but I may not have actually typed into this blog . . . but sometime about this time a year ago I told myself that I wanted to blog daily . . . even if it was just to say that it was raining instead of snowing or that LJ said something funny (which is usually a daily event). This year is going to be different. I don't think that I'll say that I'll post daily because there are very few things that I do every single day unless forced to (don't think I could go a whole day without going to the bathroom). But I will say that I WANT to post at least weekly - that being said I want to go no more than 7 days between posts. Sometimes that might be that I post every day and other times there may be a gap of 7 days between posts but I'm going to try really hard not to let it go more than the 7 days.

I've been thinking a lot the last few days about what I want my New Year's Resolution will be. I've come up with a few but knowing myself they will all have been thrown out the window by the end of January. Some of them include to stop picking at my toes (I'll spare you the gory details of that one), to stop biting my cuticles (I gave up biting my nails years ago but that was only because I began to bite my cuticles instead)- I've even gone so far as to pick at my cuticles with tweezers. I also thought of putting myself on a yarn diet but that just isn't going to happen. No matter how hard I try - I WILL come up with a plan to buy yarn so that it doesn't count against my yarn diet, I'm cleaver like that.

One resolution that I really really really do want to keep/accomplish this year is to clean out and organize my "front room". This is what used to be the front porch of my house that the previous owner enclosed to extend the inside living room space. I have been living in this house for 5+ years and there are still boxes of of stuff out there that haven't been fully unpacked yet. Notice I said unpacked - they have been gone through and rearranged and what not and a few things taken here and there but they have never been fully unpacked. Hubby keeps threatning to get a dumpster and just throw it all out as if we haven't used it in the 5+ years we've lived here then what the hell do we need it for???? He's right, he's so right but I just can't bare to just throw it out. I know that there are things out there that I want, things that have sentimental value to me and things that one day I just might NEED!!! This brings me to a new show that we've been watching called Horders on A&E. I don't want to become a hoarder. So, my resolution this year is to clean out the front room and get rid of stuff I don't want or need anymore or things that I've been holding on to because I just might need it someday. It's been 5+ years - it's time to let go - they are just things.

So there you have it. I am making 2 resolutions this year:

#1: Blog a lot more often.

#2: Clean out and organize my front room.

and I'm going to add one more:

#3: Use up as much of my stash as possible instead of buying new yarn. There I said it.

Happy New Year!!!!!!

Forgive me that it has been soooooooo long!!!!

Ok, so just as I start just about every other blog entry by apologizing for how long it's been since I have blogged - this one shall be no different. Here is a breif update on what has been going on since September...

Like I said in my last post that Scott was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes. This was discovered in his pre-op blood work for his knee surgery - thus cancelling the said knee surgery until he could get his numbers under control. As of this date I am happy to announce that he has gotten his blood sugar numbers under control and has been given the go ahead by his primary physician to have the surgery done. He has an appointment this coming Tuesday to meet with the surgen to set a date - more on that later.

My Local Yarn Shop (LYS) celebrated their 5th year anniversary of being in business in November with a party to benefit two local charities. We raised over $1300 between ticket sales and the Chinese auction. I won a bracelet made by Abigail Deardorff and 10 skeins of light blue yarn. Dunno what I'm going to do with either just yet.

The very next day Scott and I celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary. I can't beleive it's all ready been 5 years - some days is seems like so much more and other days it seems like it was only yesterday. We wanted to get a way for a night or two just the two of us but that didn't happen.

As per tradition we went to Aunt Karen's and Uncle Andy's for Thanksgiving dinner. Everything was DELICIOUS as always! I even had 3 servings of corn pudding. I can't remember the last time I had 3 servings of anything. It was soooooo good!!!!!! Earlier that day I had a great idea! Scott and I had been watching the sale adds for toys for LJ for Christmas. And there was a Toys-R-Us right next to a hotel over in Rockaway, NJ. And since we were all ready 1/2 way there at Aunt Karen's . . . and we didn't get a chance to get away for our anniversary . . . an idea was born. Grammy took LJ home from Aunt Karen's and Scott and I would continued to the hotel and went over to Toys-R-Us next door at midnight when they opened and start our Christmas shopping for LJ. When we drove past the TRU around 9:30 there were a few cars in the parking lot but no big line, but when we went back over just after 11:30 there was a HUGE line - but we got in it anyway! We stood in that line out in the cold until about 1:00AM when we finally made it into the store - where it was WARM!!!! We got a few good deals but I don't know that we would do it again. It was an experience that we can now say that we experienced.

Right around that time Scott got a new job with a local Attorney's office. It seemed like a really good idea at the time but after 7 weeks of working there he decided that it wasn't for him. He liked the people that he was working with but the actual work that he was doing wasn't what he really wanted to do. So for now he is job hunting and collecting unemployement. We also discussed it and thought this would be the perfect time for him to have his knee surgery - not only because he wasn't working but because it's winter and he isn't golfing much. If he were to have his surgery now then he would have the rest of the winter and part of the spring to recooperate before golf season 2010 started.

The fall months were pretty good for our Bail Bond business. I don't think it's as much as it could be but we're making a bit of money here and there.

This past December was a lot of the same old same old. I worked for an entire week for the first time since before LJ was born. Because he's in daycare 3 days a week and comes to work with us 2 days a week I have always had an afternoon or two off a week. Closings are dribbleing in although two weeks ago we did the biggest one in Gateway's history. To celebrate Dad booked two tickets for him and Mom to Arizona over President's weekend to visit with thier friends Wilson & June that used to live next to them.

For Christmas I had found a calender on ebay for my Mom from the Papillon Rescue group that I thought was was in Arizona but is actually in Arkansas (AZ - AR - it's close!!!!). I guess it was wishful thinking on my part that they would be so close to the Rescue. Mom has been toying with the idea of getting another dog for quite some time and to rescue one would be the ultimate! Ah well . . .

The most recent news is that Scott has a job interview on Monday with a local Lending institution. YAY! We were hoping that a position would be becoming open soon and it has. Only thing is . . . Scott's knee surgery may now be postponed - again!

On the knitting front - I took the class on the Celtic Shawl - had a blast - haven't finished the shawl. As it turned out the yarn that I chose to do the project with I just wasn't diggin it - so I changed to a different yarn - now I'm thinking that the second yarn is too heavy. So it's in a time out for now until I figure out what I want to do with it. I started Elizabeth Zimmerman's Pi Shawl - was going quite well then I put it down to knit a pair of socks for my BIL for Christmas - when I picked it up again I made a mistake and continued to make it to the point where I needed to rip out about 10 rows and start over - then I realized that I didn't rip it out enough so I had to rip it out again - and yet one more time - as for now it's in a time out. I cast on again for the Katerina Shawl out of the Knitter magazine from the UK with a lace weight yarn instaed of what ever yarn they suggested. So far so good :). Now that the Celtic Shawl is in a time out I'm going to take the needles off of it and put them back on LJ's blanket that I never finished and put it in a car so that I'll get some work done on it. I also cast on for a pair of socks recently with a DK weight sock yarn that I checked my gauge for and only need 48 stitches around for a pair of socks for myself. I think these are going to be my lounge around socks.

New Year's was good - low key - but good. We went down to Cookies - had pizza for dinner then brought B back up to our house where we drank and the boys played video games and I knit - we watched the ball drop - had a few more drinks then went to bed. No biggie but fun none the less.

So that's it. I hope to post more this year, so I guess we'll just see how that one goes.