the mighty momogus

Across the aisle from me at the TNNA show was a booth for Kalamazoo Knits, manned [personned?] by two lovely ladies named Diane and Erica. During lulls in the traffic, we would kind of drift across the aisle and chat with each other. As I was examining their booth, I noticed a skein of really brightly colored Lorna's Laces. I asked them what that was about (they're a pattern company), and Diane explained that it was from a dyeing workshop she does in the Kalamazoo area. They had a sock knit from the dyed yarn hanging up and the colors were ka-pow-ey! The secret to the color intensity is that they use Wilton Cake Icing dye. It's gentle and kid-friendly, but with much more intense colors than Kool-Aid.

So of course, the split second that I got home I ordered the instructions, grabbed Gus and zoomed off to Michael's to buy some dye. I had some undyed superwash fingering weight yarn from a trip to Kraemer Yarns a couple of years ago. The instructions say to soak your yarn in vinegar and water for 4 hours-overnight, but of course 2 hours was the most I could wait before plunging in. Here is the dye master starting his skein:


Here he is almost finished up:


Here is his skein wrapped up, cinnamon-bun-style, read to get nuked:


Here is my skein, not so interestingly dyed, but colors I love:


Here are both skeins, hanging up to dry in the sun on the pitchback:


Here are the two skeins, dried and wound and ready to get knit into something fabulous!


I can't recommend this method highly enough. It was just as easy as Kool-Aid, but the colors - whoa! It's extremely kid-friendly if you want a fun summer project. I have a bunch more undyed yarn and plenty more icing dye.

You can buy the instructions from Kalamazoo Knits Etsy store. Now please excuse me as I go stand in front of my Wilton Icing Dye selection and ponder what's next....