Well, we did it; my cousin and I took the leap into Kool aide yarn dying... We both died 2 different looks. SO FUN! Now watching your videos means something different for me. I am soaking up every word. Thanks for your inspiration!
I ABSOLUTELY LOVE😍 this 🧶!!! It turned out GORGEOUS!! The end product is so Tropical 🦜! I think that koolaid is probably the best way for us to learn to balance & try different techniques like you said like the speckle... I think I'm going to start dyeing my own 🧶🤔... it's so much more cost efficient too. Thank you Rebecca!! 😘
Since half the fun of learning to dye yarn will be doing it with my grandkids, no way was I ever going to start if it was a product that required a respirator mask for safety or was very expensive. This makes it accessible for just about anyone. If I really come to love dying my own, maybe I will eventually venture into other types of dye but food dye just makes sense on every level for a beginner like me with kids often around and limited space (live in an RV.)
I love watching these videos with Koolaid. I recently went back to the beginning, so to speak, and did some ice dyeing with some Koolaid. I started dyeing yarn a few years ago and of course used Koolaid and Wilton's food coloring. I loved trying all your techniques. I progressed on to acid dyes and am addicted. It was fun to go back and play with my Koolaid. ( I still love breaking Wilton's violet and black every once in a while, too) Happy Dyeing!
I’ve done the yellow lemonade before and HAD to add a little more food coloring. But I really liked the yellow and blue part of your project. Also the total affect of the dry skein did look like a parrot. Really full of surprises! Thanks for experimenting!
This is great! I've learned the hard way that sometimes less is more, but every once in a while I over do it. This is why i show the washing in most videos. :D
That is gorgeous! I 💗 it. I’ve done a limited amount of dying both koolaid and acid it really is so much fun. I haven’t done any in several years and this has me itching to get back to it. 😀
I’ve been learning SO MUCH! I was given some bare wool from the Falkland Islands and I want to dye it; but I’m super nervous. I’ve never dyed yarn before. Thank you for your videos!!! 🌷
Would love to see you do two skeins like this and then do the over dye on just one of them so we could see how the over dying makes the skein less splotchy. Love watching your videos.
That would be fun! This isn't quite a similar comparison, but in this video I dyed a fairly splotchy variegated colorway and then overdyed some of it: th-cam.com/video/2D0rTUJvOgw/w-d-xo.html (See Joy and Fatigue)
Oooo I haven't seen that before! I'd love to find some of the other yellows out there... but I'm not really willing to order them online since i could just add liquid drops.
Thank you so much for your videos. I can't wait to dye some yarn with my 5 year old. I am hoping that if she dyes the yarn herself, she will then actually wear the sweater I make for her out of that yarn. Fingers crossed!
Very new to your channel! I am very interested in dying my own yarn, actually joint the knitcarate this may because you are in it and I I get to try it for the very first time, I cant wait! Going to check out your etsy as well!!
I'm loving the kool-aid series! Your videos always encourage me to try dyeing my own yarn, but these food-coloring related videos make me feel like I could actually do it myself. Would you ever speckle over a variegated skein? Or would that not work?
I got my may knitcrate. Thank you for helping me figure out what to do with it. I would love to see your skeins crocheted or knitted up a swatch to see what colorway ends up like. Great videos
I'm so glad that you find my videos helpful! One skein can look so different depending on the gague, stitch number, whether it is knit flat or in the round, etc. I try to provide swatches when I do a self striping yarn to help give a sense of how long the color repeats are, but unfortunately I don't have the capacity at this time to provide swatches in every video.
I have a tiny scar on my shoulder from a wild Australian parrot! There was a preserve where people maybe illegally fed them? We weren't feeding them, just taking pictures when one landed on my shoulder and scratched me. I love the little reminder of my time there. :D
I've enjoyed your videos. Who said ,"Don't be afraid to take chances, make mistakes and get messy"? 🤔 So familiar, but I can't remember where it came from. We recently acquired some sheep and so I'm looking forward to learning how to spin my own yarn next spring and have watched some videos on how to do that and also dying the yarn. You're so creative and add a dose of science to it.
@@ChemKnitsTutorials Yes, I remember now! Ms Frizzel and the Magic School Bus! We use to like that show when my kids were little. They're all grown now - 34, 32, 26 and 21 years old, which is why I forgot. Lol. Funny adults are more afraid of taking chances and getting messy than kids. Your videos have inspired me to dye some wool I bought to practice spinning and I think I'll dye a couple of shirts I have too that have some light stains and could use some renewal. 😁
I am anxiously awaiting my knit crate and binge watching your videos! Completely prepared to be obsessed stocked up on kool aid trying to find a site to order more yarn any suggestions?
Get ready to become addicted. I started dyeing yarn 2 years ago and have just as much yarn that I dyed myself as I do yarn that is already dyed. And a ton of bare yare and dyes.
I love the yarn you got from this technique. I also watched your video with the rolled sock blanks. One thing that I wondered is what would the resulting yarn look like if you rolled the blank one way, Dyed it, and then roll it up the other way and overdye it with a second color. Would you get a gradient?
I've spoken with other dyers at shows and they all say to start with food coloring, so I don't get the snobbery I see on the internet about it. It's like a natural dyer suggesting starting with onion skins or tea.
I think one reason is that food coloring isn't as light fast as commercial dyes. (Although some colors aren't very light fast in commercial lines, too!) I don't understand the snobbery myself. People have to start somewhere and in my opinion food coloring is very un-intimidating. Many people already have some in their homes! If someone wants to run an indie dyer business, I wouldn't suggest that they use food coloring as the primary dye source. (I always disclose in my listings when the yarn was dyed with food coloring, because some people prefer commercial dyes on their yarn.) For one thing - food coloring is more expensive than acid dyes! But I still love it and it is fun to come back to my roots. :D I'm a beginner natural dyer myself - and I recommend onion skins as a place to start. Super satisfying results! ;)
@@ChemKnitsTutorials Exactly! In the natural dye community, there's always discussion of light fastness and the fugitive nature of various dyes and it's just kind of forgotten by the synthetic dyeing community. Even worse than forgotten, it's often seen as a sort of defect. Some colors will always fade the question is whether the level of fading over time is acceptable. Red cabbage doesn't stay past rinsing in wool, this is unacceptable to me. Weld will fade away completely in about 500 years. This is acceptable to me.
Omg I just loved that bluish green yellow colors in yarn 🧶 before u added the red 😁 didn’t like the red added when was wet but after dried was a pleasant surprise 😝 What are the sizes of ur aluminum pans? And if I used just food coloring dyes the gels.. about how much white vinegar do I add? Thank u 😋😉
These aluminum pans that I got from costco to hold the hot yarn are "half size" I believe. Two of them would fit in a full hotel steam pan. I don't use them to heat any of the yarn, but they're handy to use for things that need to cool. For gel or liquid food coloring, I like to start with a ratio of 1-3 tablespoons of white vinegar per 8 cups of water. The actual amount I use depends on the technique. For something like this video I might start with 2T. For kettle dyeing I might start with 1T and then add more vinegar as time went on. I hope this helps!
ChemKnits Tutorials ya I think helps. Hope lol 😂 ya the aluminum pans I knew would use just for cooling and such.. I’m gonna start slow and easy lol koolaide lol 😝 I sent my hubs to store to pick up a variety of individual packets of koolaide and he said they don’t have them anymore.. just big containers of 🥺
I usually only show swatches when I'm dyeing self striping yarn so people can get a sense of how big the stripes might be. Unfortunately I don't have the capacity to swatch the hundreds of colorways I dye a year. Swatches can look so different depending on the gauge, number of stitches, flat vs round, knit vs crochet, stitch pattern, etc.
Rebecca, does kool aid fade after a period of time when used to dye bare yarn? I have friends who use only acid dyes because of this reason. But I prefer using food safe dyes and want to know if I should expect that the color will fade out of the yarn over time. Thank you for your great video instructions.
This video is pretty old but I show some projects that faded because I left them in direct sunlight: th-cam.com/video/izhOyrUJ6Ys/w-d-xo.html The winter hat and mittens I show in the video are still super vibrant and I think they're over 10 years old now. I store them in a basket in the closet when I'm not wearing them. (There might be some *slight* fading when I compare to the other side but they look super bright in pictures.) Here is a picture from this winter: instagram.com/p/B7J3KVnjm4C/
That hat was knit with the first 100% wool yarn I ever dyed! (So long ago it wasn't even a video, just a blog post.) I've found some faster fading tests in direct sunlight. Food coloring fades MUCH faster when wet: th-cam.com/video/DAPiU1MTOoM/w-d-xo.html Over the span of hours. I hadn't observed this until I filmed this video but I tried it based on what some others had observed. But I haven't observed fading on items stored out of direct sunlight. In general, I recommend people dyeing for business purposes to stick with commercial dyes. (It is ultimately cheaper for pigment.) BUT for hobby dyers I think you can have great success with food coloring yarn.
It shouldn't. I haven't done any humidity tests specifically. I suppose it could change how quickly you lose water volume in your pots, but otherwise think things should be fine.
Yes - there could be some differences between the two skeins. One might have more red than the other etc. This is part of the randomization, but there also could be some balance.
Weird question, but when you knit with this does it still smell like kool-aid? Also, in my mind I keep thinking, but it would be all sticky. But I guess the stickiness of prepared kool-aid is actually from the added sugar?
It isn't sticky at all - I think stickiness does come from sugar. If you're using a sugary mix the sugar rinses out, thank goodness. There is a KoolAid smell but that fades fairly quickly in my opinion.
Thanks for sharing your dye experiments! two questions - 1) I love the shawl you're wearing in this video - is it yarn you dyed? 2) I got one of the steam pans that you linked to - I used it on my gas range and it gets hot spots where the burner is. Any recommendations about working around that? Even if the heat is super low, it's an issue for me.
Yes! I dyed the yarn here: th-cam.com/video/VsJStzZ5O2M/w-d-xo.html and the pattern is anantarktis. I used to worry about hot spots a lot. I don't worry as much anymore. I used to shake the pans more to distribute the heat and I haven't done that in a while. Honestly I'm not sure why.... The chafer pan isn't ideal for the reasons you stated, but I do like that I can spread out the yarn a lot. I've never had any burn issues on the yarn itself.
This video wasn't done with KoolAid (I don't think at least, I don't remember) but it was done with food coloring th-cam.com/video/oftsMXnzrug/w-d-xo.html The colors are very wash fast, but aren't that light fast so can fade in direct sunlight. If your tap water is basic (pH above 7) then acid dyes and food coloring may bleed a bit when washing.
Could you please tell me, can you use gray, 100% natural wools with kool-aid and over dye them for jewel tone colors? Do you have any videos using darker wools? Thanks so much! Shauna
Yes you can! I have a few videos. If the color is super deep the koolaid won't make a huge difference: th-cam.com/video/OFvRp-X6lxg/w-d-xo.html Here is a deep brown yarn that I overdyed with food coloring: th-cam.com/video/B9yzR9qtqlc/w-d-xo.html There are some others, too. A medium or light gray is a lovely color to start overdyeing.
Nope! th-cam.com/video/oftsMXnzrug/w-d-xo.html I'm sure that there could be fading eventually if you wash many times (but this is the case with many commercially dyed items, too.)
Yes! I started out dyeing 80% acrylic/ 20% wool yarn with KoolAid. The final colors will be more muted/pastel than on 100% wool, but you will get a visible color shift. Dyepot Weekly #35 will show side by side how this type of blend turns out compared to a 100% wool yarn: th-cam.com/video/ED9Jq0I_6LI/w-d-xo.html
food coloring is very wash fast. I mostly handwash knits, but I haven't had issues with the occasional machine wash from items. I have items that I dyed over a decade ago that are still super vibrant! Food coloring can fade in direct sunlight - it isn't as lightfast as most commercial dyes. I recommend drying hand dyed yarn out of direct sunlight (fading seems to be a bigger issue on wet yarn for some reason.) I store my food coloring dyed winter hats in a basket in the closet when I'm not wearing them and they're still super bright after years of near daily use in the winter. The worst fading I've seen is from a butterfly I knit and left on a window sill for months. I hope this helps!
Good question! KoolAid dissolves really easily so it is just as easy to store it as the powder. With commercial acid dyes, I always wear a respirator mask while using the powders so I like to get them in liquid form so I can take the mask off.
No, I don't think so. I think micah works well in soap because it is in a suspension. I would love to be able to add glitter to yarn, but it needs to be spun into the fibers.
No, not in my experience. I've seen fading when the yarn is left in direct sun light for hours outside in one test, but not from normal wear of a hat. (Before doing that test I hadn't ever seen fading on a fast time scale and my favorite winter hat is 10+ years old and has the first yarn I ever dyed with food coloring. ) I'm so sorry it took me so long to reply.
I am going to be featured in the May KnitCrate this month! I figured it was a great time to dive back in and update many of my favorite KoolAid techniques with new videos. :D We take making lemonade out of lemons very seriously. ;)
With KoolAid, not really. You can use a lot of Green Apple/Lemon Lime or Blue Raspberry lemonade... but those won't quite bring you to dark colors. I recommend getting some liquid food coloring drops to supplement the KoolAid (or skip the drink mix and just do food coloring + vinegar or citric acid) for deep blues and greens. I love the Wilton color right food coloring system for deep saturated colors with food coloring.
Absolutely! KoolAid is fantastic for creating speckles. :D (You could also speckle first and then overdye it, but generally I prefer to do the base color before adding on speckles)
These tiny KoolAid packets are sugar free. (So the user could add sugar or sweetener) I don't think sugar in the mix would make a huge difference since you can wash it out (like I do when I dye yarn with candy.) Since I can't get packets easily at home at the moment I ordered some larger mixes to play around with and those have sugar. So we'll see!
I don't currently have a PO box or anything but I hope to get one in the future. (I would say near future as it was part of my plan but the pandemic put a wrench in that plan for now.) Why don't you send me a DM on instagram? I'm @chemknits
I thought for sure the red would over take everything. I'm SO glad it didn't. I absolutely love how this turned out!
I knew that the red wouldn't cover all of the colors because of how it was twisted, but I was concerned that it would feel unbalanced.
Well, we did it; my cousin and I took the leap into Kool aide yarn dying... We both died 2 different looks. SO FUN! Now watching your videos means something different for me. I am soaking up every word. Thanks for your inspiration!
YAY! I'm so glad you liked it. And thank you!
Thanks Rebecca. I love these colors. Very nice.
Thank you!
I love this skein of yarn. I thought the red had taken over until you opened it up and all the color spilled out. Beautiful!
Thank you! I love the reveal of this technique!
I ABSOLUTELY LOVE😍 this 🧶!!! It turned out GORGEOUS!! The end product is so Tropical 🦜! I think that koolaid is probably the best way for us to learn to balance & try different techniques like you said like the speckle... I think I'm going to start dyeing my own 🧶🤔... it's so much more cost efficient too. Thank you Rebecca!! 😘
I'm so glad you're enjoying this! :D There are a few more koolaid videos coming up this month.
That's really fascinating. Thanks. Love this colorway, as you said, so many different colors with only three colors of Koolaid.
Thank you so much, Amy!
Since half the fun of learning to dye yarn will be doing it with my grandkids, no way was I ever going to start if it was a product that required a respirator mask for safety or was very expensive. This makes it accessible for just about anyone. If I really come to love dying my own, maybe I will eventually venture into other types of dye but food dye just makes sense on every level for a beginner like me with kids often around and limited space (live in an RV.)
I'm so glad that you found this helpful! I love having an easy way to do this with my kids.
The yellow and turquoise was 💗👏
Thank you!
I absolutely love these colors!!! Very cool and a must do! 😊
Thanks so much 😊
I love watching these videos with Koolaid. I recently went back to the beginning, so to speak, and did some ice dyeing with some Koolaid. I started dyeing yarn a few years ago and of course used Koolaid and Wilton's food coloring. I loved trying all your techniques. I progressed on to acid dyes and am addicted. It was fun to go back and play with my Koolaid. ( I still love breaking Wilton's violet and black every once in a while, too) Happy Dyeing!
I feel the same way! I sometimes take a step back and think... this is a broken violet day!
I’ve done the yellow lemonade before and HAD to add a little more food coloring. But I really liked the yellow and blue part of your project. Also the total affect of the dry skein did look like a parrot. Really full of surprises! Thanks for experimenting!
I think I read somewhere once that Lemonade KoolAid is the equivalent of 1 drop of yellow food coloring! Super non pigmented.
Oh PARROT I heard carrot 🥕 😂
I love this color. It is really beautiful...
Thank you!
That blue is glorious. That was extremely pretty.Yes a parrot 🦜, I know I keep coming back to add more but I truly love this.
Thank you! I love the bright blue of that flavor.
I agree with you, when it was wet I was not excited but dry it is gorgeous.
Thank you!
Excellent work Rebecca! Going back to your roots!!
It is really fun to go back and play with KoolAid again. Not that I've really stopped, but I haven't done this much KoolAid at once in a long time. :D
Beautiful! Since I dyed my May KnitCrate with KoolAid, I’m sold!! I’ve never dyed anything that didn’t bleed except KoolAid!
This is great! I've learned the hard way that sometimes less is more, but every once in a while I over do it. This is why i show the washing in most videos. :D
That is gorgeous! I 💗 it. I’ve done a limited amount of dying both koolaid and acid it really is so much fun. I haven’t done any in several years and this has me itching to get back to it. 😀
That means I'm doing my job right! :D Thank you!
I’ve been learning SO MUCH! I was given some bare wool from the Falkland Islands and I want to dye it; but I’m super nervous. I’ve never dyed yarn before. Thank you for your videos!!! 🌷
You can do it! Good luck!
I really enjoyed watching this! It does seem like a great experiment to do with the kids.
It really is! My boys (especially my eldest) loves to dye yarn with me.
So pretty! Looking forward to dyeing the May KnitCrate yarn!
I am so excited for it to arrive, too!
Would love to see you do two skeins like this and then do the over dye on just one of them so we could see how the over dying makes the skein less splotchy. Love watching your videos.
That would be fun! This isn't quite a similar comparison, but in this video I dyed a fairly splotchy variegated colorway and then overdyed some of it: th-cam.com/video/2D0rTUJvOgw/w-d-xo.html (See Joy and Fatigue)
Thank you that came out so beautifully 😍
Thank you! 😊
What a beautiful color
Thank you so much!
I used Pina instead of yellow and LOVED it!!
Oooo I haven't seen that before! I'd love to find some of the other yellows out there... but I'm not really willing to order them online since i could just add liquid drops.
Wow this is amazing. Going to dive in tomorrow and dye dinner yarn 🤞
Have fun!!
Thank you so much for your videos. I can't wait to dye some yarn with my 5 year old. I am hoping that if she dyes the yarn herself, she will then actually wear the sweater I make for her out of that yarn. Fingers crossed!
I hope so too! Good luck!
Take her with you picking the yarn base, it might be too ichy for her! Good luck!
Very new to your channel! I am very interested in dying my own yarn, actually joint the knitcarate this may because you are in it and I I get to try it for the very first time, I cant wait! Going to check out your etsy as well!!
Welcome to the channel, Elaine! And thank you so much!
It came out beautiful.
Thank you! 😊
I'm really interested to try this method, also I loved the Miss Frizzle reference 😆
Thank you! It really is easy to do and so much fun.
This is beautiful. Since I found out about Knitcrate's koolaid dyeing crate I started buying some extra packs so I can try different techniques.
Awesome! It is soooo much fun!
I'm loving the kool-aid series! Your videos always encourage me to try dyeing my own yarn, but these food-coloring related videos make me feel like I could actually do it myself. Would you ever speckle over a variegated skein? Or would that not work?
This will absolutely work! You can speckle over everything. ;)
I got my may knitcrate. Thank you for helping me figure out what to do with it. I would love to see your skeins crocheted or knitted up a swatch to see what colorway ends up like. Great videos
I'm so glad that you find my videos helpful!
One skein can look so different depending on the gague, stitch number, whether it is knit flat or in the round, etc. I try to provide swatches when I do a self striping yarn to help give a sense of how long the color repeats are, but unfortunately I don't have the capacity at this time to provide swatches in every video.
Pretty colours xx
Thank you!
love watching you !!
Thank you so much!
That final result reminds me of one of Australia’s parrots: the Rosellas!
I have a tiny scar on my shoulder from a wild Australian parrot! There was a preserve where people maybe illegally fed them? We weren't feeding them, just taking pictures when one landed on my shoulder and scratched me. I love the little reminder of my time there. :D
Reminds me of tie dyed material. Very pretty.
Thank you!
That was super cool! I would like to see how it knits up!
I wish I was able to knit up more of my yarn itself. this one went to a customer, but it would look great in a garter stitch project.
Reminds me of a yarn I dyed years ago and could never replicate! Going to try this method to see if I can get close to it.
YAY! I love doing this technique with all types of dyes.
Itching to try this method Thank you 💕🙏🏻🌹. Stay safe
Thank you! You too!
I've enjoyed your videos. Who said ,"Don't be afraid to take chances, make mistakes and get messy"? 🤔 So familiar, but I can't remember where it came from. We recently acquired some sheep and so I'm looking forward to learning how to spin my own yarn next spring and have watched some videos on how to do that and also dying the yarn. You're so creative and add a dose of science to it.
Ms. Frizzle from Magic School Bus!!! She is an inspiration to me for sure! (Sometimes with my fashion choices, too.)
@@ChemKnitsTutorials Yes, I remember now! Ms Frizzel and the Magic School Bus! We use to like that show when my kids were little. They're all grown now - 34, 32, 26 and 21 years old, which is why I forgot. Lol. Funny adults are more afraid of taking chances and getting messy than kids. Your videos have inspired me to dye some wool I bought to practice spinning and I think I'll dye a couple of shirts I have too that have some light stains and could use some renewal. 😁
This was great! Thanks!
You are so welcome!
Loved the yarn at the the point in had been died twice the most. But like the final product as well.
Thank you! Sometimes I'm unsure if I took things too far or not but I love where it ended up.
I was very unsure about the cherry red as I liked the blues greens and yellows. Overall though the balance is good and really vibrant and cheery
There was a moment where I felt a LOT of regret... until I opened it at least!
I am anxiously awaiting my knit crate and binge watching your videos! Completely prepared to be obsessed stocked up on kool aid trying to find a site to order more yarn any suggestions?
YES! Dyer supplier is a great source for bare yarn! (KnitCrate's sister company.) I also order a lot from KnitPicks.
Here is a list of bare yarn sources I assembled over the years: www.chemknits.com/2018/01/where-to-buy-bare-yarns-undyed-yarns.html
Get ready to become addicted. I started dyeing yarn 2 years ago and have just as much yarn that I dyed myself as I do yarn that is already dyed. And a ton of bare yare and dyes.
I love the yarn you got from this technique. I also watched your video with the rolled sock blanks. One thing that I wondered is what would the resulting yarn look like if you rolled the blank one way, Dyed it, and then roll it up the other way and overdye it with a second color. Would you get a gradient?
You might! You're not to first person to make this request. ;) it wouldn't be a smooth gradient, but there would absolutely be asymmetry to the yarn.
I've spoken with other dyers at shows and they all say to start with food coloring, so I don't get the snobbery I see on the internet about it. It's like a natural dyer suggesting starting with onion skins or tea.
I think one reason is that food coloring isn't as light fast as commercial dyes. (Although some colors aren't very light fast in commercial lines, too!) I don't understand the snobbery myself. People have to start somewhere and in my opinion food coloring is very un-intimidating. Many people already have some in their homes!
If someone wants to run an indie dyer business, I wouldn't suggest that they use food coloring as the primary dye source. (I always disclose in my listings when the yarn was dyed with food coloring, because some people prefer commercial dyes on their yarn.) For one thing - food coloring is more expensive than acid dyes! But I still love it and it is fun to come back to my roots. :D
I'm a beginner natural dyer myself - and I recommend onion skins as a place to start. Super satisfying results! ;)
@@ChemKnitsTutorials Exactly! In the natural dye community, there's always discussion of light fastness and the fugitive nature of various dyes and it's just kind of forgotten by the synthetic dyeing community. Even worse than forgotten, it's often seen as a sort of defect. Some colors will always fade the question is whether the level of fading over time is acceptable. Red cabbage doesn't stay past rinsing in wool, this is unacceptable to me. Weld will fade away completely in about 500 years. This is acceptable to me.
@@saraa3418 I hear you on the red cabbage! Although I'm willing to try things I know may not work well for the experiment of it all. ;)
Omg I just loved that bluish green yellow colors in yarn 🧶 before u added the red 😁 didn’t like the red added when was wet but after dried was a pleasant surprise 😝
What are the sizes of ur aluminum pans? And if I used just food coloring dyes the gels.. about how much white vinegar do I add?
Thank u 😋😉
These aluminum pans that I got from costco to hold the hot yarn are "half size" I believe. Two of them would fit in a full hotel steam pan. I don't use them to heat any of the yarn, but they're handy to use for things that need to cool.
For gel or liquid food coloring, I like to start with a ratio of 1-3 tablespoons of white vinegar per 8 cups of water. The actual amount I use depends on the technique. For something like this video I might start with 2T. For kettle dyeing I might start with 1T and then add more vinegar as time went on. I hope this helps!
ChemKnits Tutorials ya I think helps. Hope lol 😂 ya the aluminum pans I knew would use just for cooling and such.. I’m gonna start slow and easy lol koolaide lol 😝
I sent my hubs to store to pick up a variety of individual packets of koolaide and he said they don’t have them anymore.. just big containers of 🥺
Do you ever show a swatch of the dyed yarn knitted/crocheted? I don't know how they look when made up.
I usually only show swatches when I'm dyeing self striping yarn so people can get a sense of how big the stripes might be. Unfortunately I don't have the capacity to swatch the hundreds of colorways I dye a year. Swatches can look so different depending on the gauge, number of stitches, flat vs round, knit vs crochet, stitch pattern, etc.
Do you scour your wool before dyeing it? How do you determine if that needs to be done? Thanks for these tutorials! So much fun! :)
I don't. I think if you have yarn with high lanolin content then scouring could help out for getting even color coverage.
Ok cool- thx! :)
I love how this turned out. Could yarn be dyed if it is braided like hair?
Yes! th-cam.com/video/R7G7I9iK7yM/w-d-xo.html
ChemKnits Tutorials cool! Thanks.
Rebecca, does kool aid fade after a period of time when used to dye bare yarn? I have friends who use only acid dyes because of this reason. But I prefer using food safe dyes and want to know if I should expect that the color will fade out of the yarn over time. Thank you for your great video instructions.
This video is pretty old but I show some projects that faded because I left them in direct sunlight: th-cam.com/video/izhOyrUJ6Ys/w-d-xo.html The winter hat and mittens I show in the video are still super vibrant and I think they're over 10 years old now. I store them in a basket in the closet when I'm not wearing them. (There might be some *slight* fading when I compare to the other side but they look super bright in pictures.) Here is a picture from this winter: instagram.com/p/B7J3KVnjm4C/
That hat was knit with the first 100% wool yarn I ever dyed! (So long ago it wasn't even a video, just a blog post.)
I've found some faster fading tests in direct sunlight. Food coloring fades MUCH faster when wet: th-cam.com/video/DAPiU1MTOoM/w-d-xo.html Over the span of hours. I hadn't observed this until I filmed this video but I tried it based on what some others had observed. But I haven't observed fading on items stored out of direct sunlight.
In general, I recommend people dyeing for business purposes to stick with commercial dyes. (It is ultimately cheaper for pigment.) BUT for hobby dyers I think you can have great success with food coloring yarn.
am so looking forward to trying this when my crates arrive. Will humidity affect the colour uptake?
It shouldn't. I haven't done any humidity tests specifically. I suppose it could change how quickly you lose water volume in your pots, but otherwise think things should be fine.
If this were sock yarn, would I turn this hank into two balls and if so, won’t the two be very different?
Yes - there could be some differences between the two skeins. One might have more red than the other etc. This is part of the randomization, but there also could be some balance.
Weird question, but when you knit with this does it still smell like kool-aid? Also, in my mind I keep thinking, but it would be all sticky. But I guess the stickiness of prepared kool-aid is actually from the added sugar?
It isn't sticky at all - I think stickiness does come from sugar. If you're using a sugary mix the sugar rinses out, thank goodness. There is a KoolAid smell but that fades fairly quickly in my opinion.
Thanks for sharing your dye experiments! two questions - 1) I love the shawl you're wearing in this video - is it yarn you dyed? 2) I got one of the steam pans that you linked to - I used it on my gas range and it gets hot spots where the burner is. Any recommendations about working around that? Even if the heat is super low, it's an issue for me.
Yes! I dyed the yarn here: th-cam.com/video/VsJStzZ5O2M/w-d-xo.html and the pattern is anantarktis.
I used to worry about hot spots a lot. I don't worry as much anymore. I used to shake the pans more to distribute the heat and I haven't done that in a while. Honestly I'm not sure why....
The chafer pan isn't ideal for the reasons you stated, but I do like that I can spread out the yarn a lot. I've never had any burn issues on the yarn itself.
Do you think Kool-Aid dye would work for dyeing linen for cross stitch fabric? I love that blue.
Unfortunately, no. You need a protein based fiber (wool, silk, etc) to dye with KoolAid. This won't work on cellulose fibers like cotton and linen.
I wonder how well the kool aid color holds up with washing of finished product
This video wasn't done with KoolAid (I don't think at least, I don't remember) but it was done with food coloring th-cam.com/video/oftsMXnzrug/w-d-xo.html The colors are very wash fast, but aren't that light fast so can fade in direct sunlight. If your tap water is basic (pH above 7) then acid dyes and food coloring may bleed a bit when washing.
Could you please tell me, can you use gray, 100% natural wools with kool-aid and over dye them for jewel tone colors? Do you have any videos using darker wools?
Thanks so much!
Shauna
Yes you can! I have a few videos. If the color is super deep the koolaid won't make a huge difference: th-cam.com/video/OFvRp-X6lxg/w-d-xo.html Here is a deep brown yarn that I overdyed with food coloring: th-cam.com/video/B9yzR9qtqlc/w-d-xo.html There are some others, too. A medium or light gray is a lovely color to start overdyeing.
So very pretty :)
Would love to see you do this again :)
Thank you! 😊 This is one of my favorite techniques. With KoolAid again or with other dyes? :D
I do not dye yarn but I am curious, wouldn’t the color fade after washing?
Nope! th-cam.com/video/oftsMXnzrug/w-d-xo.html I'm sure that there could be fading eventually if you wash many times (but this is the case with many commercially dyed items, too.)
I have a hat that is Wool and Acrylic, would that be ok to dye since Wool is protein based?
Yes! I started out dyeing 80% acrylic/ 20% wool yarn with KoolAid. The final colors will be more muted/pastel than on 100% wool, but you will get a visible color shift. Dyepot Weekly #35 will show side by side how this type of blend turns out compared to a 100% wool yarn: th-cam.com/video/ED9Jq0I_6LI/w-d-xo.html
@@ChemKnitsTutorials oh wonderful! Thank you for your prompt reply
Can you please tell me, how colorfast is the Kool-Aid in the wool? Also, do you know how lightfast it is?
food coloring is very wash fast. I mostly handwash knits, but I haven't had issues with the occasional machine wash from items. I have items that I dyed over a decade ago that are still super vibrant!
Food coloring can fade in direct sunlight - it isn't as lightfast as most commercial dyes. I recommend drying hand dyed yarn out of direct sunlight (fading seems to be a bigger issue on wet yarn for some reason.) I store my food coloring dyed winter hats in a basket in the closet when I'm not wearing them and they're still super bright after years of near daily use in the winter. The worst fading I've seen is from a butterfly I knit and left on a window sill for months.
I hope this helps!
Hi Rebecca! Love your videos! Do you sell you dyed yarns?🙂
Yes I do! chemknitscreations.etsy.com/
And thank you!
why do you make a jar of stock for professional dyes, and for kool-Aid it goes right into the pot ?
Good question! KoolAid dissolves really easily so it is just as easy to store it as the powder. With commercial acid dyes, I always wear a respirator mask while using the powders so I like to get them in liquid form so I can take the mask off.
Rebecca how do the Kool Aid dyed yarns fair after a few years of life post dying?
Great! The winter hat I wear all the time was knit from the first 100% wool yarn I ever dyed. It is still super vibrant after years of winter wear.
Have you ever tried Mango kool-aid for a brighter yellow? pineapple also makes a brighter yellow.
I've never found mango or pineapple! I'd love to try them if i could ever get.my hands on them.
If I find them again I'll send you some. I have used mine all up
Is it... possible to dye yarn with micah powders? I'm honestly just curious lol
No, I don't think so. I think micah works well in soap because it is in a suspension. I would love to be able to add glitter to yarn, but it needs to be spun into the fibers.
Reminds me of Superman sherbert!.
YES!
Does the color fade away quickly when dyeing with food coloring and kool aid
No, not in my experience. I've seen fading when the yarn is left in direct sun light for hours outside in one test, but not from normal wear of a hat. (Before doing that test I hadn't ever seen fading on a fast time scale and my favorite winter hat is 10+ years old and has the first yarn I ever dyed with food coloring. ) I'm so sorry it took me so long to reply.
How hot do you want the water to be?
Below a boil is ideal.
This is very timely, since this month we're getting white yarn and koolaid instead of dyed yarn due to the corona virus
Shes partnered with them which is amazing! im overly excited lol gotta excuse me n my supply of kool aid
I am going to be featured in the May KnitCrate this month! I figured it was a great time to dive back in and update many of my favorite KoolAid techniques with new videos. :D We take making lemonade out of lemons very seriously. ;)
Beautiful colors. Too bad it would be difficult to duplicate the colorways. This would be gorgeous as a sweater
Is there a way to get a dark green or blue?
With KoolAid, not really. You can use a lot of Green Apple/Lemon Lime or Blue Raspberry lemonade... but those won't quite bring you to dark colors. I recommend getting some liquid food coloring drops to supplement the KoolAid (or skip the drink mix and just do food coloring + vinegar or citric acid) for deep blues and greens. I love the Wilton color right food coloring system for deep saturated colors with food coloring.
Eres maga, este video esta buenisimo
Muchas gracias! Encanto poner color en lana. (Lo siento, no se si mis palabras estan buenos.)
Magnifique
Thank you!!!
yes a Macau
:D
Can I die the whole thing then speckle it?
Absolutely! KoolAid is fantastic for creating speckles. :D (You could also speckle first and then overdye it, but generally I prefer to do the base color before adding on speckles)
*watching rather than studying for my biochem final, because it's chemknits*
LOL! I'm not sure if this would help with any enzyme mechanisms ;)
Great use of Kool-Aid. The colours are lovely. But... do people actually drink that!? Ewww.... :-D
I don't really (occasionally for a Halloween spooky punch, but otherwise I don't consume it personally.)
Oooooo‼
❤🧡💛💚💙💜
Thank you!
Did you see sugar free koolaid?
These tiny KoolAid packets are sugar free. (So the user could add sugar or sweetener) I don't think sugar in the mix would make a huge difference since you can wash it out (like I do when I dye yarn with candy.) Since I can't get packets easily at home at the moment I ordered some larger mixes to play around with and those have sugar. So we'll see!
Rebecca, How do I get snail mail to you? I have somethings coming and I want to share with you.
I don't currently have a PO box or anything but I hope to get one in the future. (I would say near future as it was part of my plan but the pandemic put a wrench in that plan for now.) Why don't you send me a DM on instagram? I'm @chemknits
Lol at the reason why it works is…your finger pointing at calories 0
I have a feeling I was trying to show the citric acid in the ingredients. :D