A Sweater to Dye For

The photo above is the sweater (well, yarn that was previously a sweater) I had written about previously. The sweater I was hoping really was mohair because I wanted to try overdyeing it with Kool-Aid. Yep - mohair and maybe a little bit of something else. I ended up with about 5 ounces - well, that's what my $1.00 kitchen scale said - of periwinkle bliss.

After frogging the sweater Friday night I started experimenting with Kool-Aid using the microwave method. I wanted to see what colors would work as an overdye. I started with grape, Berry Blue, black cherry, and strawberry. I laid my skeins out on Saran Wrap and set forth to explore the world of dyeing. First I hand-painted a small skein using a turkey baster and a little of each color - this was a little tedious and the dyes pretty much ran together. I ended up ditching the strawberry and dyed three test skeins solid with remaining colors. The picture to the left shows the test runs. The skein on the bottom is the yarn before dyeing, left is Berry Blue, then black cherry, grape, and the varigated on the right. I loved the berry blue - it really surprised me! I really liked the black cherry too.

Saturday I had decided to split the batch of undyed skeins and dye them Berry Blue and black cherry. I started with berry blue - some of the skeins took more of the blue dye than the others so I did not get an even color on the whole batch. I ended up playing with more colors and going for the varigated look. I'll post pictures later - as they are outside drying as I write.

If you haven't tryed the Kool-Aid dye - you should. It is fun, cheap, and easy. I will put a link to the guide I used to get started. I can't wait to experiment with more colors. I picked up a few more sweater to frog - one is a cream colored cashmere I paid a whopping $2.98 for! It may become my next Kool-Aid victim! I found Kool-Aid on sale for 10 cents a pack. I totally stocked up - at that price I figure what I don't use for dye - we can drink!