Random Dye Job

I can be quite random sometimes. Sometime during the day yesterday I decided I had to dye this skein of yarn that had been in my stash for quite some time. I had to do it that night and it had to be done with Kool-Aid.

I spent a couple of minutes after work looking up a recipe for the color I liked and I was off! I'll spare you the rant about how ridiculous it is that Big Y had no Kool-Aid brand items in the aisle labeled Kool-Aid... After a quick trip to the always delightful Stop and Shop I had some fruity drink packets in flavors similar to what I was looking for. I can honestly say I've never bought 20 packets before, come to think of it I don't remember the last time I had Kool-Aid. I was so ready to jump in I forgot to unpack my lunch bag or put my Cancer Society daffodils in water right away (as an aside this is a great way to donate and get some beautiful flowers).


I soaked the light blue Cashwool, a 100% wool cobweb yarn in the sink for maybe a half hour or so. I really wasn't feeling this color. I want to knit both the Fountain Pen Shawl and the Sweet Lily shawl from the most recent IK with yarn I currently own and didn't want to buy more yarn just because of the color issue.


So into the pot went 17 packets of Black Cherry and 4 of Iced Blue Raspberry lemonade. I wanted a deep color and this site suggested around 5 packets per ounce of yarn. I wanted the dark plum but they didn't have the right flavors at the store. Since I had to do it that night I subbed. This is what it looked like when I started and yes, that is my dinner cooking alongside it. Don't judge.


I simmered it for awhile and the dye did actually exhaust. It was really neat to see.


After cooling I rinsed it but there was really no bleeding of color and hung it to dry in the basement. I'm happy with the color even if it isn't as purple as I would have liked.


This was surprisingly fun and super super easy. The house smelled really nice too. I perhaps should have tied the skein better as I'm sure it is going to be a bitch to untangle but I'll burn that bridge when I come to it. The only issue now is the yarn amount. I have 1350 yards in this skein. I would like to use it doubled so figure 675. The sweet lily shawl calls for 875 on US8 needles. I want a smaller shawl and was thinking of going down a few needle sizes to maybe a 4 or 5. I'm 33% short which is a scary difference. I could not double it or I can knit a bit on the smaller needles and see how I'm doing, maybe re-adjust some numbers. Hmm, I'm stumped on this one, maybe I should make sure I can untangle it first...