Kool-Aid dyeing for Fibre Arts Friday

I have been very lacking in creative inclination in the last few months. I tried making a pair of felt slippers for Creature at the weekend but they came out too small so will have to start again. However in digging through the box of roving I found the packets of Kool-Aid that Julie bought back from America two years ago, and so I decided to do some dyeing (vaguely following the instructions here on Knitty.) It's slightly worrying that some people feed this stuff to their children, it really is the ultimate non-food 'food'.

This is about 5oz of fleece roving, just soaked in cold water.

The instructions say you do not need extra acid to fix as the Kool-aid is pretty acidic.

1 pack per 1oz of fleece or yarn, so I made up 2 packs strawberry, 2 packs cherry 

and 1 pack blackcurrant, each in a glassful of water.

This batch has all three colours:

This batch has just the cherry and strawberry, it looks all the same but one is more pinky:

They were both heated in the microwave for 8 minutes, in two minute chunks with a rest while the other was heated. The instructions said a mere 4 minutes but suggested you keep going until the colour is absorbed and the water is clear; you can see here all the dye has been absorbed:

I left them to cool then washed and rinsed gently, squeezing as much water out as possible 

(do not wring or swish about too much to avoid felting)

Here are the two hanks, one is about 3oz, the other about 2oz

Close up of the lovely soft colours:

Hope to do a bit of spinning before next week.

We are going to see if it works just as well on Creature's hair:-)

(Linking back to Fibre Arts Friday where you can visit other creative wonders.)

Fleece update and Guerilla Art

The fleece had a total of five baths in the end, there are still some grubby bits but the felting process involves lots of soap and hot water so I am thinking that it will be clean enough by the time I have finished.

The other book I have been browsing recently is 'The Guerilla Art Kit' by Keri Smith (website link, or blog link). Her ideas are kind of the antithesis of vandalism, they are about putting something beautiful or thought provoking in a public place to try and get a response from people. She is very interested in getting people to express their creativity and share it with others, to help people see that anyone can create things, you don't have to be especially talented or clever. The book has all sorts of interesting ideas for how to go about making your mark.
I had been following her blog for a while and was interested after reading about 'yarn bombing', putting knitting in public spaces to decorate them. Anyway, all very interesting stuff. It is also 'Knit in Public Week' this week, aimed at raising the profile of the craft of knitting (and crochet too), to change it's image from the idea that it is something done by elderly ladies who are a bit scatty and make tea-cosies (though one day I intend to be a bit scatty and will probably knit a few of those).

Step into the kitchen ...

... because it smells a bit sheepish in the rest of the house.

Dunk and I dropped M at her raft building yesterday afternoon at South Cerney Outdoor and drove on down to the lovely village of Leighterton to call on a lovely lady called Jennifer, who's neighbour has a small organic farm, and picked up this wonderful organic Dorset fleece. It is straight off the sheep (and I know we should have snapped a photo of them while we were there) so this afternoon it has gone in a tub of hot water, the first of several I expect. Though it was surprisingly clean there is a definite sheepy scent to the house at the moment. I will add progress posts over the next day or so as this is the first time I have processed a fleece from scratch and it will be a steep learning curve.