I've been saving up cotton crochet thread, and lace yardage and motifs to try my hand at Kool-Aid dyeing and finally did it Saturday morning, with mixed results. I love how the laces came out. Especially the fish motif, who will soon be swimming on a peachy, orangey, rusty wedge shaped block. The threads, however, did not come out in a usable form. The colors were okay, but I think maybe the Kool-Aid made the fibers brittle, because when I started winding them onto cards, they just broke every few inches. I know it's partly because I used some who-knows-how-old thread that I bought at Sally's, but it also happened with the new DMC perle cotton that I used. Maybe the acids in the dye were just too much for the threads. Too bad, I got some fun variegated colors.
I used fruit punch (in a store brand drink mix) and orange, grape, and lemon-lime in K-A brand. The fruit punch made a nice red, and a watered down bit of it in a wash over the green made a nice foliage green. The green by itself was a bit bright for what I wanted; pretty, but not very natural looking. The grape was pretty much dark grey on the lace, though it did help to add a few drops of it to the red; this made a dark burgundy color full strenghth and a dusty rose color diluted.
Yesterday I went to buy some blue K-A and some lemonade. Will try that soon. All in all, I had great fun playing with the dyes. Michaela was insulted that I used Kool-Aid in such a manner, however. She would prefer to drink it.
2 comments:
Janet I think the colors turned out really pretty...I like the fish and the lace. It sounds like you had a fun day. I think Imight try my hand at this, if I ever get all my blocks finished..thanks for the incentive
I have an idea why they threads may have broken--I will email you privately abut that---I had a kool-aid dying class a couple years back--we used 100% wool that was ready for dye...it was fun, time consuming, and messy--but the wool came out great..I have not played with dying since ;o) *~*CAROLE*~*
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