Dip dyeing yarn with Grape Crush

So I've been binge watching videos from Rebecca at ChemKnits.  She's amazing by the way. And since I've been doing a lot of knitting lately, I went yesterday looking for dye dedicated equipment so I can try to start dyeing my own.  I have a friend who asked, a long while ago, if I could make her a pair of fingerless mitts that are blue and purple. I have been looking ever since for a nice purple/blue variegated combination and I realized that NO ONE puts just these two colors together anymore, so I've been continuing to search and also contemplating dyeing my own, so I can get what I really want.  

I entered 'dyeing yarn with Kool Aid' into the search box on  YouTube.  There are a whole boat load of videos about this.  So I watched a bunch to see how the methods varied between dyers.  Along about 10th or 12th in the series was a video from ChemKnits for handpainting yarn with Kool Aid. And about 5 seconds into the video I was hooked.  She was painting the yarn with her son, Lucas, who is totally adorable.  

I started bingewatching all her videos and she uses a lot of interesting materials to dye her yarn. :)  It's amazing to watch.  I love that she gets soooooo excited about the colors and techniques. She uses a wide variety of easily accessible kitchen stuff to dye her yarn. (Seriously, check out her stuff and see what she does with  Wilton's gel food color!)

So this inspired me.  When I went on my shopping spree yesterday, I got a 2 liter of Grape Crush (She used Orange Fanta in one of her videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo3OrjVfmnA&t=485s), so I could see what the purple would come out looking like.

I soaked my yarn (50% superwash merino, 25% rayon from Bamboo and 25% nylon) in the water for an hour.  I poured the whole 2 liters of the Crush into the stock pot I bought and heated it.  I tried the dip dyeing, so I could try to get a gradient look to the yarn.  It didn't take long to get the color soaked into the yarn.

This is what the pot looked like when I was done with my yarn. I know I kicked myself for not getting a before picture.  But it was very purple.  You couldn't see anything but the carbonation bubbles and the grape pop.

This is the yarn soaking after I stopped the dyeing process.

This is the yarn yesterday after I was done rinsing the yarn.

And this is what it looks like this morning.  It's WAYYYY lighter than I thought it would be and it's not even purple.  It's a mauvey/magenta color  It's still very pretty, but not the purple I was going for.

Today, we're going to have a household dyeing experiment.  I'm going to be making Bri more socks, but she requested more with different colors (because teenagers don't like matching socks).  I asked if she would like it better if she made her own yarn, and she got very excited.  So to the store we went! :)  I'm not entirely sure what methods we're going to be empoying, but it will be a very fun adventure.  I'll post the results.

I enjoyed this experiment and I want to thank Rebecca from ChemKnits for the inspiration and all the instructions.  Check out her videos, they're incredible.