Dear Mr. Kool - Aid Man,

Dear Mr. Kool-Aid Man,

I think I am in love with another. As much as I love your smiling round belly. I think it is time that I try another coloring method to dye my yarn with.

Mr. Kool-Aid Man, you and I have spent a couple of wonderful days together. I have enjoyed hunting you down, but my heart has been yearning for someone else. His name is Wilton. I discovered Wilton when I was researching how to use you. Wilton intrigued me, because the yarns that I saw online that he mixed with were so vibrant and rich. I wasn't sure where to find Wilton at first. But I knew where to find you, so I tried you first. (Please do not think I settled with you. Because I didn't.)

So I picked you up, took you home and tried you out. I liked you. You gave me 6 wonderful little balls of joy, but I wanted more! I wanted something deeper and richer. Something that would make a statement. I think I we could have that together, but it would take some work.

Maybe I am lazy and didn't want to work that hard. So I tried Wilton and he gave me what I was looking for without all of the work. Sorry Mr. Kool-Aid Man. I still like you and I hope we can still be friends.

In a perfect world, I hope that I can figure out how to use you and Wilton together. I know it is possible, because I have seen photos of this. I hope you understand. I hope you are not too upset. I am sure that I am not the only one who has left you behind for Wilton.

Stay strong Mr. Kool-Aid Man. We will be together soon! I still have a ton of packets that I still need to use.

Love,
Petrina

***
Blog Post - Hello Wilton's

Cheryl came over last week, because she wanted to try hand dyeing too. Figured it would be a good day to try the Wilton's Icing Coloring that I purchased a few weeks ago since I already made several balls using Kool-Aid.

Cheryl used Kool-Aid and made a hank of variegated pink yarn. Can't wait to see it.

I pulled out another roll of Lion Brand's Fisherman's Wool with brown specs and my box of 8 flavors of Wilton's and went to work. I used Wilton's Christmas Red, Lemon Yellow, Leaf Green and Sky Blue and made this awesome yarn. Not sure what I should name it. I used the dip method to make this yarn.





Because I was sharing the table with Cheryl I didn't have a enough room to spread out. Big mistake! You need a lot of room for this, because there was coloring on the table and on my hands when the yarn hit the coloring on the table it turned the yarn a brown/muddy color. At first, I was upset when I saw the skein after it dried. Now that the yarn has been balled, I love the brown hints in it.The brown didn't happen every where the colors blended together, because the places where the blue and the green touched made this peacock green/blue color. Very gorgeous!

I also love that fact that even though my hands were covered they weren't stained for days. After 2 or 3 washes my hands were clean.

I know I just wrote a Dear John letter to Mr. Kool-Aid about my new love. I just wanted to let you know that our love is not perfect. No love is. Our love is messy. For some reason that I can not explain. I feel as if the Wilton is messier than the Kool-Aid. The only reason I can think of is that Wilton's is a gel and the Kool-Aid is a powder.

I also didn't have the muddy coloring with the Kool-Aid. Even though the muddy color worked this time, it may not work the next the time, so I have to be really careful when using Wilton's.

Pros of Wilton's Dye:
Vibrant Colors
Washes off the skin easily - color was off my hands after a couple of washes unlike Kool-Aid
Mixes will certain colors
Cover the yarn completely - no white is showing

Cons of Wilton's Dye:
Gets muddy
Very drippy

Lessons learned:
Don't let too many colors touch
Let two colors touch
Must use work alone
Have a ton of gloves


I have one final ball to dye and then I am done dyeing until I knit at least 3 more projects to get rid of my stash. This dye job may be a little different than the others, because the final ball is superwash merino wool (of course made by Lion Brand. I feel like all I have been using lately is Lion Brand yarn). I think I am going to dye this last ball this week. I am curious to see how it is comes out, because of the chemical that is on the yarn that makes it washable may have an amazing or yucky reaction with the dye.