Loyal readers may remember this post where I hand-dyed wool using kool-aid. This wool has lay unused for so long that I decided enough was enough.

We use cloth nappies with the children and wool makes an excellent cover for the nappies. I like the longies that are quite popular just now and so using some of my wool whilst following the Aubrey Doodlepants pattern I created these longies for the baby.

I do apologise for the terrible photo but unfortunately space is at a premium in this house right now. The longies seem to be doing the job, they’re beautifully soft and the baby just looks good enough to eat in them. I subsequently made another pair using the same pattern for #2 but unfortunately I haven’t managed to accost him for a photograph yet. I will, though.

I made a few modifications to this pattern. Firstly, I measured her waist and subracted an inch to make the waistband fit better. I also measured her hips and increased in the five rows after the waistband to prevent the waistband from sagging too much. Then, after the short rows were done I found the stitches that would be grafted and increased between those every other row to create a gusset and provide a better surface area for kitchenering. Have I mentioned that I love the kitchener stitch? Oh! Beautiful and not difficult to learn either.

Overall I’m happy with how these came out and I expect I’ll use the pattern again. I’m all about the freebies.

As I live in the UK, it can be quite difficult to acquire kool aid without paying a huge amount in postage so I have recently bought some acid dyes to play with. I’m quite excited but nervous in case I ruin the wool I’ve bought. We’ll see how it goes.

I have more to update but I must wait to hear when my craftster.org swap pal receives her package as I don’t want to ruin her surprise.

Posted under dyeing wool, knitting

I spent a couple of hours last night dyeing up some wool using kool aid that I acquired from eBay months ago. GREAT fun! Seriously, although I’m not sure what I’m going to do with all this yarn. I very well may sell it on etsy if it comes out a good enough quality. I have very cleverly managed to dye my hands bright red, with a bonus raspberry-blue fingernail. Any tips on how to get rid of the dye would be greatly appreciated! I shall use gloves next time.

I did two types of dyeing – steaming and microwaving – and I’d say the microwaving was easier but steaming was more fun. My steamer has two racks but I didn’t want dye dripping from one rack to another, so the self coloured wool went in the microwave and the patterned stuff went in the steamer. I used roughly 6-8 packs of kool aid for the patterned wool and four for the self coloured, and that’s for 100g (4oz) of wool. Knitty has a great article on kool-aid dyeing here which was written by their advertising manager Kristi Porter. There’s also an article on the different dyeing techniques written by Julie Theaker and these were the articles I used to guide my dalliance. Thanks go to Emma Crew for pointing me to this colour chart too.

I’ll post again when I have them re-skeined, buut for now here are a few action shots, with more available here.

Posted under dyeing wool