Monday, June 12, 2006

Silk Ribbon Dyeing

Saturday was a very rainy day here in Eagle Valley so after straightening up the house I played with dyeing some silk ribbon. One of the yahoo groups has been chatting about dyes and we talked about using Kool-Aid and what vibrant colors it produced. So Kool-Aid is what I used. The mixture I used was a 1/4 of a teaspoon of Kool-Aid powder with a Tablespoon of water. Lemonade made a very nice light yellow...lime made a bright green...orange of course made a bright orange...and grape made a very dark purple.


To get lighter green colors I mixed lemonade and lime. Adding a little orange to the lemonade gave me a darker yellow. To get an olive shade I mixed a little orange with lime. I'm very pleased with the colors.

For the most part I followed Sandie's dyeing instructions..I microwaved them, then heat set them with the iron..after that I rinsed them in fabric softener. It was easy and not too messy...I didn't use gloves but the Kool-Aid has worn off my fingers already.


7 comments:

Julia said...

Thanks for this Iris...
the ribbons came out bright and beautiful...I have some kool-aid that Pat sent me quite some time ago, but have not been game to use it...I will now have a go!
Hugs Julia

Viv and Eddie said...

They are really lovely ribbons Susan, particularly the Daffodil yellows and Olive greens. You did a great job with the Kool-aid...I wonder what it does to your stomach lining???

Sara said...

Great colors. You did well. I keep saying I am going to start working with dyes. One day!

crazyQstitcher said...

The ribbons look terrific Susan, and if I can get Kool-aid here will try them myself. Great colours.

abeautifulcraft said...

They turned out fabulous. Cool Aid can be brought in Aussie at the USA shop online.... lol might have to try some!

Cat said...

I came across your blog this morning, and saw this on koolaid dying, I'm so thankful for the info, I had just bought a spool of white silk ribbon and was thinking of trying the koolaid...I'll have to do that today!

Amy Munson said...

Hi Jo,
I have wanted to dye some silk ribbon. I just tried my first SRE and just love the dimension and texture it adds. The small packages of silk ribbon I have found are rather expensive for the little bit you get. I think dying myself will be the way to go.
Happy quilting
Amy