Ice dyeing with Kool-Aid

Rule #1: Wear gloves!

I became interested in ice dyeing after a presentation at the weaving guild by our resident expert. I am no expert, but it seems like part of the magic is getting colors in a dye to separate.

The simplest yarn dyeing I have found is with Kool-Aid (plain - without sweetener). The citric acid in the powder acts as a mordant for the food coloring. Some of the flavors are made up of a single color, so if you want to see colors separate, read the packages to make sure there is more than one color.

I've tried Kool-Aid dyeing with only wool, but I assume it will work with any protein fiber. As far as I know, it won't work with plant fibers like cotton, but perhaps after treating the cloth with soda ash? Verification of this concept is left to the student.

The yarn I chose for the first batch was some from an estate sale, of unknown source; it may even be handspun. I soaked it in water initially, to help with the absorbtion of the color. I laid it in a sieve so that it would not be resting in the melted dye bath.

Instead of covering the yarn with ice, then sprinkling Kool-Aid on the ice, I made ice cubes from barely diluted Kool-Aid.

I neglected to weigh the yarn and calculate just how much Kool-Aid I should use, so the colors are rather pale.

But the Grape colors - red and blue - did separate.

The Black Cherry Kool-Aid cubes went after the Grape. Black Cherry also consists of red and blue, but red (which is listed earlier on the ingredient list) is much more prominent.

The final step was to put the finished yarn inside a ziplock bag (leaving the bag open a bit to let steam escape) and zapping it in the microwave for a couple of minutes, turning the bag over halfway through.

While the colors are not vibrant, I like how they turned out.

What would one call this colorway? 'Muted Fruit Cocktail'?

So after Grape and Black Cherry came Orange and Lemonade. Orange is made up of red and yellow, the Lemonade is just yellow.

This time I used some commercial yarn, Hayfield Natural Wool DK, about 50g, divided into two smaller skeins. Again, I soaked it beforehand. One skein went into the sieve.

Since some of the dye in the first experiment ran through the yarn, leaving a puddle in the bowl below the sieve, I placed the other skein in the bowl to catch the excess color. It didn't work out quite like I expected.

By now I was out of Kool-Aid ice cubes, so I placed plain ice cubes on top of the yarn in the sieve and sprinkled them with the powdered Orange Kool-Aid. A package of Lemonade went into the bowl. Each skein was placed in a ziplock bag and zapped in the microwave for a minute.

What would you call these colorways? 'Koi 1' and 'Koi 2'? I think they would pair well with black.

Be aware that the yarn will smell like Kool-Aid once dyeing is complete. After rinsing the yarn in cold water, I made up a cold water bath using Unicorn Fibre Fibre Wash, to get the smell out.

I still have a package of Lemonade Kool-Aid, so I may dye another small skein with that at some later date, as a companion to the above skeins.