A Kool Aid dyed experiment

One of my weaving guild members is part of a study group in another town.  She recently lead a socially distanced class on "fun" dyeing.  They used Kool Aid.   You need to use the unsweetened Kool Aid drink powder in the little packets.  It's no longer sold in Canada, unless you luck out and find it at a discount or outlet store.  Last winter I found some packets at a dollar store and stashed a bunch of them for future use. 

At our last Zoom meeting, Barb had shown her results which was a huge pile of skeins that she had dyed with Kool Aid, at 1 packet to 1 ounce of wool yarn.  It was lovely, colourful and inspiring.

Not wanting to duplicate her results, I tried something a bit different.  I had picked up a packet of Guar Gum about the same time I purchased the Kool Aid packets.  Guar Gum is a thickener and one of it's many uses is to thicken dye for painting skeins.  It helps prevent the dyes from running together too much, allowing for techniques which might need more distinct lines.   I found it at the bulk food store, in the gluten free section. 

You don't need a lot of it. I used 5 ml in a litre of water.  I buzzed it up in a blender.  Since it was food grade, I didn't worry about extra equipment but used the seldom used smoothie blender in the back of the cupboard.   It was thickish, but from a couple of videos I'd watched, I thought it should have been thicker.   However, I decided to try it as it was, so if it didn't work, I had a definite starting point to work from   I divided the liquid into 7 disposable cups which had been sitting in a box for years.  I added a single packet of Kool Aid powder to 6 of the cups and left the 7th cup uncoloured, to use as an extender if I needed it.

The Kool Aid powder blended in quickly and gave fairly bright colours.   I used my acid dye syringes since I couldn't find my husbands stash of foam brushes which I sometimes use to paint fibre with.  Earlier in the day I'd wound a wool/silk blend warp for 2 scarves. I tied a tight choke tie in the middle, where the fringe from one scarf ended and the other began.  I tied looser figure 8 ties on the rest of the warp, except for the cross.  It was tightly tied too.

 I soaked the warp in warm water with about 1/4 cup of vinegar.  It's not really necessary, but I wanted the dye to take quickly.  As well, it was a lot of warp for a little dye, and I wasn't sure how diluting it with the guar gum would affect the dye to acid ratio.  I felt comfortable with a little extra security.

I used a lot of plastic wrap and ran it in long lengths, to put my warp on.  This protects the work surface to some extent but also protects the yarn when you steam it.   Since I was working on the glass topped patio table, I didn't put down any other protection on the table.  Kool Aid and Guar Gum are food safe, plus the glass table is super easy to clean.   I used syringes and spoons to paint the warp.  The syringes were discards from my husbands workplace and a friend who breeds Alpaca.  They are easily available at the farm supply store though.

Once I had the colour on, I wrapped the plastic wrap tightly around the warp threads.   I tucked one side in, around the warp and then rolled it up.   Amazingly, the guar gum did stop most of the leakage from where the plastic wrap pieces joined.   I dyed one scarf, rolled the plastic around it and then did the second one, as my table wasn't large enough to do both at once. I rolled the whole kit and kaboodle up like a jelly roll.  I popped it into a dye pot, with a steamer rack in the bottom, added a few inches of water and let it steam for about an hour.  I added water a couple of times during the process, to make sure the pot didn't run dry.   It doesn't need an hour, but my pot lid had gone missing, so the one I had to use didn't fit quite tightly enough.  This way I made sure it had enough steam time.

I turned off the stove after the steaming time was up.  I let the warp cool down overnight. If the wool yarn, or roving or fibre cools down too quickly, it will likely cause the fibre to felt up.  Since this was a wool silk blend, it could not only felt the wool, but damage the silk, if I didn't let it cool slowly.

The final colours are fun.  I'd read someplace that the purple Kool Aid was an ugly colour, but I rather like the purplish-grey colour.  The guar gum did prevent any major blending of colours from one colour to another, even if it wasn't quite as thick as I'd thought it should have been.  The warp is now on my loom, waiting for me to start weaving.

So, why did I use a wool/silk warp, luxury fibres for a Kool Aid experiment?  Kool Aid, and food colours in general (Wilton's Paste food colours work well too), act as weak acid dyes.  That is dyes which are easily fixed with vinegar or citric acid.  However, they need a protein or animal fibre to work.   The only pure wool I had was blanket wool.   I didn't have enough of any one white fibre to wind a scarf warp, let alone a warp for two scarves.   I did however have enough white wool/silk blend for the warp and the weft for at least one of the scarves.   Since I know that food colours, when heat processed at the proper temperature and time are stable, I wasn't too worried.