Because Kool-Aid is food safe I was able to work with my kitchen pots and pans but with Rit dye I moved to the basement and used pots that aren't used to cook food. I rigged this table to make a longer skein (don't you just love duct tape?!)
Unfortunately, I didn't time things right and I couldn't achieve the desired results but I did get a very pretty wine colored yarn which made a gorgeous pair of socks (details next blog entry!)
After this dying experiment I discovered a personal dilemma. The amount of water used to wash the dye out of the yarn was enormous. Rit dye works on both cotton and wool and because I was dying 100% wool yarn, the unused additives and dyes intended for cotton were being flushed into the water supply. Dying your own yarn is NOT eco friendly. What to do? I had two packets of Rit dye and 7 skeins of bare yarn! I decided to use the dye on a few of the skeins but I resolved to use only natural dye techniques for any future projects.
Rit colors Pearl Grey and Scarlet. I achieved the variations in grey by simply leaving the skeins in the dye baths for varying amounts of time. The bonnet is for Laura's Halloween costume (the Sunmaid Raisin girl!) Unfortunately, the fabric must be a cotton/poly blend (there was no label) because the bonnet did not come out the beautiful red that the yarn did.
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