Dying wool with Kool Aid

While stumbling around online I found out that you can dye unspun (raw?) wool with Kool-Aid. I tried it out last night and it worked like a charm. Here are some photos I took while doing it.

From right to left, I used grape, tropical, cherry and orange. Unfortunately, the tropical was almost identical in colour to cherry.

I tested out the colour by sort of drippling the kool aid on the wool. After this I steamed it in a steamer basket over a pot of boiling water.



Before I steamed it there were a lot of white areas where the colour didn't soak in. After steaming the colour spread to the white areas.

I dyed two other batches of wool in pots, one I tried to achieve a dark purple/burgundy colour by mixing cherry and grape, and in the other pot I tried cherry by itself. 

First, I dissolved the packets in warm water then added the wool.  I didn't bother following any of the measurements that I found suggested elsewhere online.  I brought the water to just under a boil and then put the lids on and let the wool sit for 45 minutes or so.  After that I checked the water and all the dye had been absorbed and the water was clear.

I was a little worried that my beautiful fluffy wool would start to felt, so I let the wool and water cool off for a bit and then I washed it out using the same temperature water from the tap as was in the pot.  Then I used a dove bar of soap to wash it lightly. Then I hung it to dry.

I'm going to be making a woven wall hanging with the wool.  I want to make a loom-type thing in the shape of a triangle.  I will likely make it out of a large peice of cardboard or foam board.  hmmm..... I will post my progress.