Dyeing...or trying!

Once upon a time, many years ago, a new-ish knitter was visiting a yarn shop in her capital city and found this:



In a rather patriotic moment she bought not two, but FOUR skeins of the yarn...two were given as a gift and two were added to her STASH!

Years and years passed and the new-ish knitter became a more experienced knitter - far from an expert mind you - but experienced enough to get by. She hoped and hoped that one day the right pattern would appear before her eyes and begged to be knitted in the red, white, and blue yarn...but it did not happen.

Then one day, Ravelry appeared in the new-ish-now-more-expereinced-knitter's life. The knitter discovered that she could sell or trade her yarn there. She posted the red, white, and blue yarn, in hopes of giving someone else some joy. A couple of people responded, but before the knitter could make a deal, a kool-aid dyer suggest that the yarn be over-dyed. So - the knitter went online for instructions and asked for advice from her plurk-buds and this was the result!

Choosing the Kool-aid (I chose to use Black Cherry)


*First I soaked the yarn-



ugh - as you can see, I did not polish the fixtures before taking the photo!

While the yarn soaked, I chose my Kool-aid and assembled all the "parts" -


-including six packs of Black Cherry Kool-aid.

Then I mixed the packs with some very hot water from the tea kettle and poked it around a little with a spatula to cover all the yarn with water. Next, I put the bowl in the microwave for 6-7 minutes...maybe a little too long, judging from all the Kool-aid spatters inside the oven!


Afterwards, I rinsed the yarn in hot water until the water was totally clear and cooling and gradually switched to cooler water so I could handle the yarn more easily. I hung it up to dry-



...and dyed the other skein - repeat from *.

...and here are the results - TA DA!



I'm very pleased! What do you think? I think they all lived happily ever after!