Kool-aid

So back in July (ok I'm still catching up!) my woolly bullies did a kool-aid dyeing workshop. It was fan-friggin-tastic. We each got some undyed sock yarn (Valley yarns Franklin in a large cone from WEBS) I got two socks worth and dyed one there and one later that week.

Most of the gals did the self-striping thing:


which basically involves making a really really long skein, giving it a bath in vinegar and then dipping different sections into jars with high concentrations of koolaid (April also used wiltons cake icing colouring- bottom photo) and waitin for the dye to be soaked up into the yarn.

I decided to be different and not do stripes on my first skein:


So I put the yarn into my crock pot, with some water (note: too much water=white spots) and poured the kool aid (3 packets grape, 2 packets strawberry lemonade+1 grape and 2 packets ice blue+1 grape) onto different sections of the yarn. I turned out looking... um... interesting in the ball.



I haven't knit it up yet. In retrospect I should have re-dyed some spots... we'll see how it looks knitted up.

Then a few days later I tried the striped method, not measuring or anything (yup. that's how I roll.) I used: ice blue, ice blue + grape and ice blue + lemon lime.



I was pretty happy with the result. But not nearly as happy as when I started to knit it up. I found this sock pattern: Circle Socks.


The stripes work so perfectly with the pattern, I can't even believe it. Seriously. Remember, I didn't measure the yarn or plan the stripes at all! I love it when this happens... :)

PS We visited two more alpaca farms (Circle O and Burton Alpacas)! OMG i love baby alpacas...