You may not even know about these, but way back at the beginning of this blog, almost 3 years ago, I did a couple of kool-aid yarn dyeing tutorials. They were specifically how-tos for getting particular kinds of variegation (as opposed to dyeing basics) – part 1 being three blending colors, part 2 longer stripes of random-order solids. (I’ve just gone back and edited these old posts a little, changing some bad advice I’d given and some minor details, but not anything major.)
So, after 3 years and countless skeins of dyeing experience have now passed, I want to do a couple of new dyeing tutorials for you! (For the basics of dyeing, if you’re new to it, see the link list in my first tutorial, since this post is only meant for this particular variegation method, not for kool-aid dyeing in general.)
I recently dyed up a skein of bulky yarn (Imperial Stock Ranch Lopi) with 5 different colors in my crock pot, for a spotty, kettle dyed kind of look, as you can see above. Dyeing in a crock pot is different from dyeing in a pot on the stove because the water is more still, so the dye tends to stick to the yarn where it falls more, and colors tend to blend together less. This makes a variegated yarn with more defined colors, instead of just a few colors which are blended together. My specific flavors used were: Lemon Lime, Orange, Strawberry, Berry Blue, and Lemonade.
To get this look, you’ll need a crock pot (I got mine at my local Goodwill outlet for around $5), wool yarn (or a blend with other animal fibers like alpaca, angora, cashmere – a small percentage, like 15% or less, of something man made, like nylon or rayon, would be ok) in hank form, several colors of kool-aid, a large spoon, a colander, and vinegar is optional since kool-aid already has acid, but I usually use a little anyway because I feel like it might help with colorfastness.
So, start by filling the crock pot with water (and a little vinegar if you want) and submerging the yarn in there. Let it soak a bit, then turn on the heat and put the lid on – the yarn should soak for at least 15 minutes or so (longer is fine) before dyeing, and the lid should fog up to show that it’s hot. (My vintage pot only has two settings – medium and high – so I usually use medium and it works well.)
Now you can add your first colors – this is all up to you, but I’ll just tell you exactly how I made this particular yarn. First, I covered one half of the yarn in the pot with orange, and the other half with green (lemon lime), sprinkled directly from the packet into the pot. Orange and green are complimentary colors (edit: no they’re not! what was I thinking?! but they don’t always blend well, which I what I meant), which means you need to be careful about putting them together, but it doesn’t have to be avoided completely – green with some orange makes an olive green color, and orange with a little green makes a darker orange. So, I tried not to overlap them at all on purpose, but I knew that if they bled into each other a little, it would be fine.
Cover with the lid and let it sit until the dye fully absorbs into the yarn, so the water looks clear and the yarn is colored. Now use your spoon to turn the yarn over, so all the undyed yarn from the bottom is now on top. I tried to keep it arranged the way it was, just flipped, so that the bottom layer stayed orange on one side and green on the other side. I poured blue on the half that had green below, and red on the side that had orange below. This was because green and blue blend well, as do red and orange (blue+orange or red+green, not so much) and the top colors were likely to do some blending with the bottom colors. Red and blue were chosen to add next to each other for the same reason, to make some purple when they touch and blend.
Cover and let the dye absorb again, then use your spoon to turn the yarn around and search for white spots. I used my last color, yellow (lemonade), which would blend well with all of the other colors, especially since lemonade kool-aid is really light and subtle, to fill in any white spots I could find. When I found white, I’d arrange the yarn with the spoon so as much white as possible was on top, sprinkle on some lemonade, and cover to let it dye. Then I kept repeating the white investigation and dyeing until the yellow packet was all used up. (As you can see, the powder sits on the water surface a little before sinking to the yarn – if it doesn’t sink down right away, you can push it down with the spoon, but this might mix the colors more than you want.)
Once the dyeing is complete, turn off the heat, and let it sit in the water to cool for awhile (until cooled to room temperature is best, but not totally necessary). Now scoop the skein out with the spoon, into the colander in the sink, and let it cool all the way to room temperature there. Rinse a bit, with water of the same temperature, and squeeze the water out as much as you can, without twisting. Roll up in a towel to dry more, shake it out, then hang to dry (in the shower, or on a hanger in a doorway, or on a coat rack, etc) overnight or until totally dry. Ball up and knit!
A note about my yarn, and the colors I used… red bleeds like crazy, way more than any other color, so even though I used exactly equal amounts of the 5 colors, the red really took over the skein. (The photo below shows how much red there is.) So, if you are using the same (or similar) colors as me, and want more even variegation of the colors, I think it would be wise to use about half a packet of red instead of a whole packet.
But, that said, I still love this yarn, and knitting with hand-dyed variegated yarn (that you dyed yourself!) is unbelievably fun and satisfying, an experience I think every knitter should try! With yarn like this, every stitch is different from the last!
Oh yeah, I should show you, this is the same method I used to dye these yarns (and more):
Fun! Yay! And I’d love to see your yarns dyed using this how-to! (you could link to photos in the comments, or add them to the leethal flickr group!)
Lee Does Stuff 
Do you have a problem with the color washing almost completely out when you rinse it after it’s been in the koolaid? I dyed some today, and when I rinsed it with cool water, the color was almost gone! = / I went looking for the label after I saw your blog and thought that perhaps it’s the type of yarn (i.e. mostly cotton), could that be the problem? Your yarns are beautiful! I knew that’s what they were supposed to look like, so I was surprised and disappointed when I did mine!
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yeah, it only works with animal fibers (wool, angora, alpaca, cashmere, etc). plant fibers (cotton, bamboo, hemp, etc) need to use completely different kinds of dyes/mordants, not acid dyes, like kool-aid. try again with wool 🙂
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So not to contradict you at all BUT this website says that you can do cotton tees. http://maryeaudet.hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Dye-with-Kool-Aid-Drink-Mix SO I made a schwack of tshirt scarves and dyed them. Instead of ironing them (haha as if!) I will throw them in the dryer on super duper high and see what happens. I will update when I am done.
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Does this work with ANY kind of yarn or it has to be wool only? Thanks.
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it only works with animal fibers (wool, angora, alpaca, cashmere, etc). plant fibers (cotton, bamboo, hemp, etc) and man-made fibers (acrylic, nylon, etc) both need to be dyed with completely different kinds of dyes/mordants, not acid dyes, like kool-aid.
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Actually, nylon WILL take acid dye. It’s not a protein fiber, but it’s pretty close chemically.
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hello my name rana usman iwant to yarn dyeinge proces
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i totally want to do this
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I can not wait to try this. I am going to make some for my hats that I make! I just need to go get some kool-aid all i have is flavored water packets
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Fantastic tutorial! Really easy to follow, and makes it a lot less daunting than I thought it would be. However, I’m in the UK, and finding Kool-Aid is basically impossible, do you know of anything else I could use? Thanks in advance!
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Thanks! You can use food coloring, but need to add vinegar or it won’t work; easter egg dyes are great as well. Do some googling for details about how these might work differently than kool-aid, but you can use the same crock pot idea to get the variegation. I think Knitty.com has an article on dyeing with food coloring, if I’m remembering correctly. Good luck!
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www.dtcrafts.co.uk sell Kool-Aid, maybe not the full range, but certainly a lot of them.
Thanks, Lee, for the clear tutorial. I shall try this soon.
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Looks nice,I may try it.
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This is great! I am going to try it. Thanks for sharing it.
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This is fantastic! I used black cherry on one side and pink lemonade on the other, but I sloshed the water around too much while it was dying, so it’s all one color now…. but it is beautiful!
I’m going to the store tomorrow to get more kool-aid flavors and try again 😀
Great tutorial, thank you
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I just tried this and nothing worked. The kool aid didn’t set into the yarn. My water just turned the color….. Not sure what I am doing wrong?
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was your yarn 100% wool? fiber content is the only thing I can think of that could have made that happen…
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Will try this, ” Awesome ” Linda
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How would the sweater, scarf, etc. be laundered? Doesn’t the color get washed away?
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This is so cool. I want to try something like it with natural dyes…
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I just posted on my own blog about this (and a couple other methods)–this is great, and I can’t wait to try your other striping method–maybe next week. 🙂
http://www.christiscraftychronicles.weebly.com
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Smart girl! I love varigated yarn and this even I can do! Thanks for the info!
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does the yarn get very tangled doing this?
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not if you tie it up well and be careful while dyeing and drying it 🙂
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sorry, another question.
since this works on yarn, i imagine it would work with clothing?? true?
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That was great! I cant wait to go find my crock pot!
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I have never seen this before! The yarn colors are so pretty!!! I’m definitely trying this!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! Oh, one quick question, are the colors stedfast or will they bleed when the item is washed?
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roughly how long does it have to soak in?
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This is wonderful. Can wait to try on my next project
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loved do this I dyed 4 skeins of wool yarn today . had so much fun I will do this again . thanks for the info it plain and to the point .
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I was reading my Slow Cooker Recipe Newsletter and there you were. This is wonderful, I have 11 Grand Children and this is exactly what I want to teach them! Thank you so much for the creativity.
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I would love to try dying, this would b a great place to start, but guess what I live in UK! No cool aid!!! I’m sure a little Internet searching would remedy that
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Did you ever tried use fabric dye?? Because I m trying to make dark forest green and gold or yellow color along with white…. As mixed…. I don’t know where to find those colors in stores as mixed one like yours. I d hope of you ll tell me if you have used fabric dye before?? Email me at pmgarrison@yahoo.com. Thanks!
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How did you wind the yarn before putting it in the crockpot?
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OMG i think i am going to try this
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This would be great to try with my seven-year-old niece. Looks completely child-safe. And somehow over the years I’ve managed to collect a superfluity of crockpots. I knew there was a reason!
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Could you please take photos of what Kool-Aid mixes make what colors? I have searched search engines but only found one that I like and it didn’t have many colors. I know MANY people would appreciate it and could you also show how you twisted the yarn up to dye it? Thank you!!!
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This makes me want to run out and get some Kool Aid…thanks for the great tute!
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do you set the color with cold water and vinegar after?
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awesome, I will try this.
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Can you use white red heart super saver yarn?
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when you wash it after making something with it, does the color wash out ? or is it permanent ?
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I followed your tutorial and didn’t get the same results. when I put the koolaid on the first side and waited until the water was clear and flipped it to the other side, the colors absorbed all the day through. I started with blue and violet and when I flipped the blue had colored the yarn all the way through. Any ideas on what I did wrong? I did add vinegar to the crockpot water and let the water heat up before adding the yard. I let the yarn soak for about 15 minutes and then added my first two colors of koolaid.
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I have had interesting results with Lion’s Brand’s “Wool-Ease” which is 80% Acrylic/20% wool… it just gives a more pastel effect
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How cool! Kool-aid is seriously so amazing.
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I cannot wait to try this – always wanted to dye my own yarn. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for posting this tutorial.
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hello there! I’m a crocheter and lover of yarn…and recently inherited a wicked stash of yarn from a woman who knit and crocheted but since she has arthritis, hasn’t been able to create anything. My question is this, if the various yarns I have are still in their original wrapping, do I need to unwind them to dye them as you have so beautifully shared?
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does the kool-aid wash out? If I wanted to make a sweater, would I be able to wash it? If I sweat does it bleed onto my skin?
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I’m in the UK. Where do I get kool-aid?!! This a fab idea and a great way of getting kids involved in yarn crafts.
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doesn’t the yarn fade with washing? I’ve seen this before and wondered!
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