It took me a long time to realize my reluctance to try knitting with this yarn again is partially because I’m not crazy about the color of the resulting fabric. And so, I’ve decided to try my hand at dyeing it. I’ll have to re-skein the cakes I wound when I ripped out the last project.

This will be my second yarn-dyeing experience, so I can incorporate the lessons learned from the first!

From the Dye Your Yarn website:
Use one packet of Kool-Aid per 10 grams of yarn.

I want to try to achieve a color close to G, Row 3, in the Orange mixtures section. I think it’ll dye well over the natural color of the yarn. This requires three parts orange Kool-Aid mixed with one part grape.

By their math, I need 45 packs of Kool-Aid (450 grams divided by 10), but since I have to divide by four for the formula, I’ll get 44. That’s 33 orange and 11 grape.

I’m seeing conflicting advice about how much Kool-Aid to use, so I’ll start with half of that and dye it again if it needs it.

July 4, 2017 (Happy Independence Day!) Time to dye my yarn!

• Soaked the yarn in a giant lobster pot for about 24 hours. I’m told this is a good idea with alpaca, since it has a hollow core and holds a lot of air.
• Took the yarn out of my lobster pot. Eeeew the remaining water is kind of yellowy-dirty.
• Put fresh water in the pot. I put in a lot of water. I want there to be plenty of room for all the yarn.
• Added Kool-Aid. 5 packs grape, 16 packs orange.
• Stirred slowly with my stainless steel spoon. Ladled some up to check the color and it’s a rusty orange, exactly as expected.
• Once I was certain all the Kool-Aid was dissolved (scrape the bottom of the pot to make sure), I moved the pot to the stovetop and set the burner to High.
• Then I squeezed the excess water out of the yarn and added it to the pot, giving it a poke with the spoon to make sure it submerged. After all that soaking it submerged easily.
• Heated to about 160 degrees, then punched the button on my stovetop for medium-high. Much of the dye has already cooked into the yarn :-)
• Not long after, the water is cloudy, but clear when I ladle it up with the spoon. Removing the pot from the heat.
• After a bit (the water was still 140 degrees) I poured the water and yarn out in the sink, then ladled up the skeins with the spoon to drain and cool them. Such a beautiful rich brown! I know it’ll get lighter when it dries, but oooo! I think I will really like the result.
• Draped the skeins on the sides of the pot to cool
• Rinsed a couple of times
• Washed in Woolite just as I would a sweater - some gentle squeezes to work the soapy water in, then soak 20 minutes or so. If I didn’t they would smell like Kool-Aid forever.

It took a while for the yarn to dry - it looked a lot darker before it dried, but after I really like it a lot! So different! I went ahead and wound it up into cakes because this yarn is very toothy and I was afraid some of the strands would fuse together permanently if I didn’t wind it up. Success!