Just about everybody who enjoys crafting with yarn has come across wonderful yarn in an ugly colour at some point in their lives. Or perhaps a yarn that's just too plain to be much fun to work with. What do you do then? Get rid of it? Trade it with someone else?

Maybe next time this happens to you, you might want to think about dyeing it yourself.

Dyeing yarn doesn't have to be expensive. Yes, there are high-class fancy dyes that can cost you a pretty penny, but there are also simple, cheap, and effective ways to get the same results. One such way is to dye the yarn with Kool-Aid. Plain and simple Kool-Aid, or any other such drink mix, can be used to dye yarn in a variety of bright and fun colours.

There are a few things to keep in mind when dyeing with drink mixes. The first is to use drink mixes that don't have sugar already added to them. The sigar will disolve and soak into the yarn, which, when dry, will become stiff and sticky. You don't typically want that in a good yarn. The second thing to keep in mind is that to take the best advantage of this dyeing technique is to use yarns that contain animal fibres. By this, I mean fibres like wool, alpaca, cashmere, silk, that sort of thing. No synthetics like acrylic or nylon. Not plant fibres like cotton. They require different dye techniques, and cannot be dyed the same way as animal fibres.

To start, you need, obviously, yarn. If the yarn is in a ball or a cake, it needs to be turned into a skein. You can do this by using a yarn swift if you have one, or any other object (a spare couch cushion, the back of a chair, etc) if you don't.

The yarn pictured above is 75% wool and 25% angora (rabbit hair), and has been wound into a skein. Once done, it is best to tie some small pieces of scrap yarn loosely around the skein at regular intervals. This is to prevent the yarn from getting tangled and messy during the dye process. The reason that the scrap yarn is tied loosely is so that it doesn't impede the saturation of the dye. If the yarn is tied very tightly around the yarn, it may cause some undyed areas in the final skein.

After the yarn has been skeined and tied off, then it needs to be soaked in lukewarm water until it's completely saturated. This is the dye can penetrate all areas of the yarn evenly. Soaking the yarn isn't a quick process, but it can be left overnight in a sink or tub of water, and by morning it will be ready.

Remember to use lukewarm water and not hot or cold, since extreme temperatures can shock the wool and cause it to felt. If you're aiming for felted yarn, then this is okay, but most of us who dye our own yarn prefer to keep it unfelted.

Once the yarn is completely saturated with water, prepare the dye pot. This can be an ordinary stew pot or large cooking pot, something you can get from your local department store. Even though we're not using any potentially harmful chemicals to dye the yarn, it's still best to have a separate pot to dye your yarn in than the one you cook your food in. It's always best to err on the side of caution.

Preparing the dye pot is no more complicated than filling a pot with water and adding some packets of drink mix. Put in enough water to cover the yarn when it's in the pot.

I will say that there are formulas to determine just how much dye mix to add to the water depending on how much yarn you want to dye, but to be honest, I never go by those. With a little bit of practice, you'll learn to judge pretty well approximately how many packages of Kool-Aid to add.

If you want a rich deep colour, it might be best to add a little bit more mix than you think you'll need, so make sure that as much dye as possible soaks into the yarn. If you want a paler colour, add less drink mix. The dye will still penetrate the yarn smoothly if it's been completely soaked properly, but it won't be as vibrant as if you'd added more dye to the pot.

Anyway, back to the instructions.

When the yarn and dye have been added to the water in the pot (remember to use lukewarm water for this, too), put the pot on the stove and turn the temperature on low, so that the water heats slowly. The slow change in temperature will allow the dye to soak and set in the yarn while preventing it from shocking the fibres and causing them to felt.

Keep the yarn in the dye bath until the water turns clear. If you've added too much dye to the water, then it may not turn completely clear, since the yarn can only absorb so much. If this happens, you can always add more yarn to soak u[ the last of the dye so that nothing's wasted, or just pour it down the drain when you're finished with it. It's just hot Kool-Aid, in a nutshell.

Once the yarn has absorbed all the dye it can hold and/or the water in the pot has turned clear, take the pot off the stove and let the water cool slowly. When it has cooled (it may take a few hours to cool completely), take the yarn out and rinse it in cool water. Some dye may come out at this point. if it does, just keep rinsing it until the water runs clear.

When the yarn has been rinsed, the only thing left to do is to hang it up to dry somewhere. Some people hang it over a wire clothes horse, other hang it outside on a clothes line. Personally, since I have neither of those things, I hang it from clothes hangers on my shower rail, so that any drips fall into the bathtub and don't have to be cleaned up later.

The yarn normally takes about a day to dry completely.Once it's dried, you can roll it back into a ball or a cake, and then use it as you see fit.

If you have a few pots, you can dye one skein of yarn in a few different colours, or different shades of the same colour, by havingthe different colours or concentrations in each of the pots. It's a little more fiddly, and requires a bit more attention, but it can be done. To see an example of this, see the red and purple wool that is shown in the first picture in this Hub.

In the case of yarns that have mixed fibres, like a wool/acrylic mix, dyeing like this can form some interesting effects. The synthetic fibres will not absorb the dye, meaning that the finished yarn may have a mottled effect in certain areas, or perhaps an undyed section running through the whole length of the yarn. Plant fibres may take some of the dye, but will not take it very strongly, and so will be paler than the animal fibres in the yarn. Play around with different types of yarn to test the effects that you can make.

And don't be afraid to dye yarn that already has some colour in it. Yarn that has white and yellow sections can be overdyed with blue, for example, to create blue and green yarn where the colours blend. Brighter colours like red may override the original colours such as pale yellows, so attention to the amount of dye you use is key to getting the right colour you want.

Experimentation is key to mastering this technique, and thankfully, since drink mixes aren't very expensive, it's a technique that you can play around with without breaking the bank. It's definitely fun, and has the interesting side effect of making your kitchen smell very fruity!