Kool Blue Waters

Val's good friend Laura has commissioned a pair of mittens. Valerie told her she couldn't wear the ones she got from the dollar tree so now Laura is pullin out the big guns and goin for the gold. I had her log on to my Ravelry account and pick a pair she liked. She said, "Can you do those? Are they too hard?" Psssh. I can do anything. We'll see if that's my tune when I'm done. I got the book from the library, ordered the wool yarn (Lanaloft worsted.) Laura is pretty go with the flow so I've taken this opportunity to hand dye the yarn for the pattern. I'm using Kool Aid.
I made a big loop so that the yarn wouldn't be variegated in such short intervals. I wanted it to be fairly gradual. Soaked the yarn in water. Looks like spaghetti.

Dissolved the kool aid. (Round one: 1/3 package blue 1 tip of spoon purple Round two: 2/3 package blue 2 tips of spoon purple Round 3: Whole package blue 3 tips of spoon purple)

I wanted 3 shades of the same blue each level darker than the next. Here you can see round one in the microwave.

I believe this is round two. Chopsticks were perfect for propping the round one yarn out of the dye. Not metal so I could still do the simple microwave method.

After round three I did all the yarn for two more min in the microwave all submerged in the darkest dye. (I realised there was plenty of room to take the whole thing darker.) You can see how much of the color it actually absorbed.

Here's the whole thing hanging out in the sink post rinse. Twisted into a loose hank and drying the rest of the way on the back of my door.

Wound into a ball. Doesn't do it justice...looks rather pink...couldn't wait to start knitting it.

This yarn has been dubbed Kool Blue Waters.

My Resource can be found here http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEfall02/FEATdyedwool.html and I strongly recommend following their directions and not my photo story board.