What are we making?
A FreshStitches Bear!
The FreshStitches colors are aqua and orange… and I know a lot of you have been wanting to experiment with Kool-Aid dyeing. So, we’re going to do it together!
Your kit contains:
- A printed pattern for Teddy
- A gauge sheet
- 220 yards of yarn undyed yarn
- 3 Kool-Aid packets (in 2 FreshStitches colors!)
- a pair of 12mm black plastic eyes
How to Kool-aid dye
I’m going to show you the basic technique, here, but you might want to have a peek at my Kool-aid dye week posts to get ideas for interesting techniques for striping/patterning your color.
To start, grab 2 bowls and pour the orange packet into one bowl and the aqua packet into the other (you will have gotten a second packet of one of these colors… pour him in with his friend!).
The dyeing is super-easy: add some boiling water to each bowl and dip your yarn in:
I did a simple ‘some in one bowl, some in the other’ technique for my bear. It’s easy and really cute! Your 100% wool yarn will slurp up the color, and you might have some white left behind. I think that’s a good thing… these two colors muddle together into brown, so it’s a good idea to keep a bit of distance between them.
To finish, rinse your yarn in cold water and squeeze the extra water out of your yarn (careful, it might still be hot!). Let it dry. If the yarn feels crunchy, give it another rinse. The color won’t come out.
Here’s my finished skein:
Pretty, huh?
Crochet your bear!
To crochet your bear, wind up your skein into a ball and crochet according to the directions! Since there’s only one color, you’ll be using the yarn for both the MC and CC.
For Teddy’s nose, I picked a spot of super-orange yarn… it really contrasts!
New to using a skein?
If this is your first time working with a skein of yarn, don’t fret! When you’re ready to wind your yarn, notice that the skein has ties on it:
This will help you find the ‘circle’ that the yarn is in. If you don’t have a swift (to hold the skein open), put it around your knees or the back of a chair to wind it into a ball!