Thursday, November 10, 2005

Penny for your thoughts

Last Sunday, whilst at a friends house I came up with the bright idea of dyeing my own yarn. I thought if I enjoy it, and most importantly can do it well I could sell it. That's one of many brainstorms I have every so often. Hubby says if he had a penny for every business idea I had, he could give up work.

Monday morning I ordered some 4ply yarn and bid on some kool aid on Ebay. We can't buy kool aid in the UK, well I've never seen it if you can. I won my bid.

Firstly, I soaked my 4ply wool in warm water. Whilst that was soaking, I mixed each kool aid sachet with 8oz of water. I then squeezed the excess water out of the wool and applied the dye. I used the microwave method of heating/steaming and found that very quick and easy. I was expecting a lot more mess, in fact, it was considerably tidy.

Does anyone know of an alternative to kool aid that I could buy here in the UK? I'm going to try my next lot using Dylon, any tips?

I love the colourway, although it's a bit wishy-washy. I definitely need to concentrate the dye more next time. However, this skein will go on to become another pair of socks. It seems I've gone sock crazy.

6 comments:

goodkarma said...

I don't know what you can use in the UK that's the equivalent to Kool Aid, but if you email your mailing address to me, I'll be happy to send a package of Kool Aid to you! :)

savannahchik said...

do you have any drink mixes that don't contain sugar? i think that's the determining factor -- the sugar will gum up the yarn.

ra said...

have you tried this? http://www.koolaiduk.com/index.php

Sweetpea4kids said...

Karma, thats so sweet of you thank you. However, ra has now given me a great website to order from - thanks so much for that.

Savannachick - I'll also be looking out for some sugar free drink mixes.

Thank again for your valuable advice.

Knittingmummy said...

Hi, read your blog all the time, I have one but not up and running yet, just wanted to say another website www.cybercandy.co.uk also sell Kool Aid.

Sweetpea4kids said...

Knitting mummmy - thanks for stopping by and reading my mish-mash of a blog. Thanks also for the info, I'll definately be dyeing again.