Last year sometime, I purchased 4 skeins of
Juniper Moon Farm worsted weight yarn in a colorway called Ruby Red Grapefruit. The color was a brilliant, bright reddish-orange. Unfortunately, I never could decide what to make with it, and it languished in my stash. A few weeks ago, I overdyed two of the skeins using a mixture of cherry and black cherry Kool Aid. The resulting color was more fire engine red than grapefruit orange, and slightly less bright.
The overdyed skeins can be seen on the left, and the original color is on the right.
I didn't dye all 4 skeins at once because 1) my pot isn't big enough and 2) I didn't want all 4 skeins to be the same color. This past week, I dyed the remaining to skeins a darker color red, also using Kool Aid, and I am super pleased with the results.
There are eleventy million tutorials on the interwebs for dyeing yarn with Kool Aid, and I don't pretend to be an expert. But hereafter is the process I use when dyeing yarn with KA.
First I soak the yarn in cool water. (Hot water promotes felting.)
While the yarn is soaking in the sink, I prep my Kool Aid. I like to mix the Kool Aid with a little bit of water before adding it to the dye pot. That way I can make sure the crystals dissolve thoroughly, which will make for a more evenly colored yarn. For this project, I wanted a dark brick red color. I used 3 Grape, 4 Blastin' Berry Cherry, 2 Berry Blue, 1 Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade, and 1 Strawberry. Tasty!
I add my dissolved Kool Aid concentrate to my pot, which is about half full of room temperature water. I stir thoroughly to make sure the dye is evenly dispersed through the water. Then, I add my pre-soaked yarn to the pot, and turn on the stove top. I let the water heat to almost boiling, turn off the stove, and let the pot sit for 30 minutes.
It is tempting to stir the yarn in the pot, but I try to resist the urge to avoid felting the yarn. After sitting for 30 minutes, the yarn will have absorbed the dye, and the water will be clear for the most part.
I drain the pot of yarn in my colander the same way I would a pot of spaghetti. I rinse the yarn thoroughly, making sure that they dye is set.
The yarn then gets hung to dry in my bathroom.
All twisted up!
Here is the newly overdyed brick red yarn next to the previously overdyed fire engine red yarn. The plan is to use the two together to make the
Bramble Bag.
This is Camembert. He and his mama are La Mancha dairy goats.
La Manchas are easily recognizable by their tiny, almost human-like ears.
Cam’s mama is named Fib and she is a lovely, sweet doe. We just adore her already.
Our current plan is to keep Cam intact and use him to breed the other dairy goats next season. In the meantime, he is about the snuggliest thing in the world! His feet have hardly touched the ground since he arrived at the farm.
First Place: 
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First Place: 
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