Hand Painting Yarn

Last week I decided to try hand painting some yarn with Koolaid. I watched my friend’s tutorial about hand painting yarn with Koolaid. After watching this, I decided I wanted to give it a try.

I used 3 packets of Koolaid in each color. I used Blue Raspberry-Lemonade, Mixed Berry, Grape, Orange, and Lemonade.

Here are the steps I followed with my comments beside them.

1.     I soaked the yarn in water and some vinegar for a few hours.

2.     Spread out a large piece of saran wrap.

3.     Mixed the dye and poured into plastic bottles. I mixed 3 packets with ¼ c. of vinegar and ¾ c. of warm water. I had to stir it pretty well to make sure the powder was dissolved.

4.     I took the yarn and squeezed as much water out of the yarn before spreading it out on the saran wrap. (I obviously didn’t squeeze enough water out as I found out later.)

5.     Then I squirted the colors in different places of the yarn and used a paper towel to mop up any liquid not absorbed.

6.     I pressed down on the colors to make sure the yarn was absorbing the dye.

7.     I turned the yarn over and filled in any white spots.

8.     I used paper towels and pressed along the yarn to absorb any liquids. (Because I didn’t squeeze a lot of the water out first, there was  a lot of water to absorb.)

9.      

10.  Then I wrapped the yarn up in the saran wrap and made a jelly roll.

11.  I put it on a microwave plate and cooked it for 2 min.

12.  I let it cool (about 30 min.) before cooking it again.

13.  I then cooked it again for 2 more minutes.

14.  I let it cool one more time.

15.  Then I rinsed and washed the yarn.

16.  I hung it up to dry.

17.   

I was very pleased with my first attempt and can’t wait to do it again. I had a lot of dye left over and I want to get some lime Koolaid so I have green coloring.

I wonder if you can hand paint tshirts the same way. This might be fun to do wit students because it is nontoxic.

-->

Have you dyed yarn? Did you do something different? Please share.