# Kool-ade dyeing chart



## Linda6885

Wanted to post this the other day when there was some questions about dyeing, but I couldn't find it. Well I just did, so here it is.


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## Knitted by Nan

Linda6885 said:


> Wanted to post this the other day when there was some questions about dyeing, but I couldn't find it. Well I just did, so here it is.


Thanks for the chart. What is used as a mordant. I have used food colouring with a white vinegar mordant but it changed the beautiful blue to a pale green when I dyed some merino. I prefer food colouring or Kool aid to chemical dyes.


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## sockyarn

Had same problem when I used too much vinegar. Was suppose to use 1/4 cup and I used 2 cups (I did not want to take time to fined the directions) I was using red colors and the extra vinegar brought out the blues. Lesson leaned. Follow the directions.


Knitted by Nan said:


> Thanks for the chart. What is used as a mordant. I have used food colouring with a white vinegar mordant but it changed the beautiful blue to a pale green when I dyed some merino. I prefer food colouring or Kool aid to chemical dyes.


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## Fluteplayer7

It would be interesting to know what fibers are in those samples. That could dramatically change the color you get. I also noticed that the chart is dated 2000. I wonder if Kool-Aid has changed any of their ingredients?? This is a great reference chart. Thank you for posting!


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## wordancer

Kool! ????


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## mama879

wordancer said:


> Kool! ????


Lol


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## amoamarone

I don't understand the chart. Maybe the color indicated is the shade on the left using one fiber and the shade on the right using another fiber, but what are the fibers?


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## Medieval Reenactor

What are the differences between the colors on the right and left? Different mordants? Different fibers?

I recently acquired a bunch of wool and am thinking of experimenting with other than the natural dyes we've been using.


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## sockyarn

I do think Kool-Aid is steady on. The only things they have changed is making it with sugar already in it and dropping or adding flavors. I used it on mixed colors (I made a sweater and spun the yarn for it and I used every scrap of animal fiber I had (( I did not know what some of it was))black, grey, brown and mixed them when needed) and the only thing that changed the colors from one batch to the next (and that is a long story in its self) was the amount of vinegar that was added.


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## sockyarn

From what I can see it is the natural color of the fiber that makes the difference in the shade of that color. Maybe there was more info on the back of that chart.


Medieval Reenactor said:


> What are the differences between the colors on the right and left? Different mordants? Different fibers?
> 
> I recently acquired a bunch of wool and am thinking of experimenting with other than the natural dyes we've been using.


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## Knitted by Nan

Medieval Reenactor said:


> What are the differences between the colors on the right and left? Different mordants? Different fibers?
> 
> I recently acquired a bunch of wool and am thinking of experimenting with other than the natural dyes we've been using.


I read it as the colour in the left hand column as being obtained dyeing natural white wool and the colour in the right hand column as being obtained dyeing natural grey wool. That is why the colours in the right hand column are darker. Many people only dye white wool and do not dye natural grey or fawn wool. I would say that the fibre would be sheep's wool.

Have you ever tried dyeing a darker fleece or yarn spun from a darker fleece? It does darken the colour.


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## sockyarn

That also would be nice to know and am wondering if it might have been listed on the back of this chart.


amoamarone said:


> I don't understand the chart. Maybe the color indicated is the shade on the left using one fiber and the shade on the right using another fiber, but what are the fibers?


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## sockyarn

I have dyed black wool and it comes out great.


Knitted by Nan said:


> I read it as the colour in the left hand column as being obtained dyeing natural white wool and the colour in the right hand column as being obtained dyeing natural grey wool. That is why the colours in the right hand column are darker. Many people only dye white wool and do not dye natural grey or fawn wool. I would say that the fibre would be sheep's wool.


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## Linda6885

Fluteplayer7 said:


> It would be interesting to know what fibers are in those samples. That could dramatically change the color you get. I also noticed that the chart is dated 2000. I wonder if Kool-Aid has changed any of their ingredients?? This is a great reference chart. Thank you for posting!


Wool.


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## Linda6885

Knitted by Nan said:


> Thanks for the chart. What is used as a mordant. I have used food colouring with a white vinegar mordant but it changed the beautiful blue to a pale green when I dyed some merino. I prefer food colouring or Kool aid to chemical dyes.


White vinegar is used as a mordant. I have never had the color change, but you may have used too much vinegar. The only dyeing I have done is with Kool aid, and I love using it, because it is easy and not toxic.


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## sockyarn

white vinegar. The more vinegar the more blue you will see.


Linda6885 said:


> White vinegar is used as a mordant. I have never had the color change, but you may have used too much vinegar. The only dyeing I have done is with Kool aid, and I love using it, because it is easy and not toxic.


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## Goodshepfarm

Knitted by Nan said:


> I read it as the colour in the left hand column as being obtained dyeing natural white wool and the colour in the right hand column as being obtained dyeing natural grey wool. That is why the colours in the right hand column are darker. Many people only dye white wool and do not dye natural grey or fawn wool. I would say that the fibre would be sheep's wool.
> 
> Have you ever tried dyeing a darker fleece or yarn spun from a darker fleece? It does darken the colour.


I agree, the yarn at the top of each column shows the natural color.


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## IndigoSpinner

Medieval Reenactor said:


> What are the differences between the colors on the right and left? Different mordants? Different fibers?
> 
> I recently acquired a bunch of wool and am thinking of experimenting with other than the natural dyes we've been using.


It looks like she used a natural white fiber for the left side, and a natural grey fiber for the right. Maybe wool.

Look at the top of the two columns. It says "natural" and shows the undyed fiber.


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## IndigoSpinner

sockyarn said:


> I do think Kool-Aid is steady on. The only things they have changed is making it with sugar already in it and dropping or adding flavors. I used it on mixed colors (I made a sweater and spun the yarn for it and I used every scrap of animal fiber I had (( I did not know what some of it was))black, grey, brown and mixed them when needed) and the only thing that changed the colors from one batch to the next (and that is a long story in its self) was the amount of vinegar that was added.


I have been told that using Kool Aid that already has the sugar in it doesn't work, or doesn't work well. Use the unsweetened kind that needs sugar added to be used as a drink. Needless to say, don't add any sugar for dyeing.


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## IndigoSpinner

Knitted by Nan said:


> Thanks for the chart. What is used as a mordant. I have used food colouring with a white vinegar mordant but it changed the beautiful blue to a pale green when I dyed some merino. I prefer food colouring or Kool aid to chemical dyes.


The vinegar didn't do anything to the dye but help it set.

There are some of the colors of Kool Aid (and they only seem to be in the blue/green range) that look one color in the liquid dye, and actually dye a different color. It seems to be something inherent in the dye, and I doubt that the vinegar has anything to do with the apparent change in color.

If you look up color systems, there are several different ones for how the color is displayed.

White light, for instance, is composed of all the colors of the spectrum. If you use all the colors of the spectrum to mix pigments (paints), you'll get black or a very dark brown. To get colors properly on a TV screen, you only need Red, Green, and Blue (called RGB). But to print different colors on a press, you need Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black (CMYK).

I don't know what it is about that one color, but it appears blue in liquid form, but dyes green. I don't have enough experience to state this definitively, but it only seems to be this one flavor of Kool Aid. I haven't run into it in anything else. But then, I haven't tried every dye made and every type of dyestuff.


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## Cdambro

sockyarn said:


> I have dyed black wool and it comes out great.


Can you elaborate on dyeing black wool? How much does it take the color? Did you use darker colors? I just bought a little bit of black alpaca and was wondering if it can be dyed. Thanks.


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## IndigoSpinner

Cdambro said:


> Can you elaborate on dyeing black wool? How much does it take the color? Did you use darker colors? I just bought a little bit of black alpaca and was wondering if it can be dyed. Thanks.


When people talk about "black" wool, they mean it's not really white. By "black" they might mean a light tan, grey, brown, charcoal or anything up to real black.

If you use wool that's actually, really, black, it's unlikely that the dye will be visible at all, or maybe you could get red or blue highlights when the light hits it right.

If you use wool that's light, but not white, you'll get colors that are more muted and/or heathery looking.


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## Cdambro

IndigoSpinner said:


> When people talk about "black" wool, they mean it's not really white. By "black" they might mean a light tan, grey, brown, charcoal or anything up to real black.
> 
> If you use wool that's actually, really, black, it's unlikely that the dye will be visible at all, or maybe you could get red or blue highlights when the light hits it right.
> 
> If you use wool that's light, but not white, you'll get colors that are more muted and/or heathery looking.


Thanks for sharing your wealth of knowledge.


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## Knitted by Nan

IndigoSpinner said:


> The vinegar didn't do anything to the dye but help it set.
> 
> There are some of the colors of Kool Aid (and they only seem to be in the blue/green range) that look one color in the liquid dye, and actually dye a different color. It seems to be something inherent in the dye, and I doubt that the vinegar has anything to do with the apparent change in color.
> 
> If you look up color systems, there are several different ones for how the color is displayed.
> 
> White light, for instance, is composed of all the colors of the spectrum. If you use all the colors of the spectrum to mix pigments (paints), you'll get black or a very dark brown. To get colors properly on a TV screen, you only need Red, Green, and Blue (called RGB). But to print different colors on a press, you need Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black (CMYK).
> 
> I don't know what it is about that one color, but it appears blue in liquid form, but dyes green. I don't have enough experience to state this definitively, but it only seems to be this one flavor of Kool Aid. I haven't run into it in anything else. But then, I haven't tried every dye made and every type of dyestuff.


As I said, I used food colouring to dye the wool. Queen Rainbow food colours, an Australian firm. There are only four colour in the packet - red, blue, green and yellow, and the green is a dark green. Kool Aid is not readily available in shops here. I can buy it at one specialist lolly shop and it is expensive.

I used the blue food colouring. If you use it is icing or cooking the end result is royal blue, not the pale green my wool turned out. The colour in the bottle is dark royal blue.

I know all about colours and mixing colours. It was my ex who had the problem with that. He would mix all the left over colours together and end up with mucky brown. He would not listen. We were taught at school that the primary colours are red, blue and yellow. All other colours are obtained by mixing these colours. Green is obtained by mixing blue and yellow, orange by mixing red and yellow, and so on.

I also know about the process of colours in printing. The photocopier/printer at Main Roads was a colour printer and had 12 different tubs of colour plus black to get the desired colours in the photocopying. Those tubs of colour were very expensive and the black was free, but you had to order a whole set of 12 colours to get the free black. I only needed the black but could not buy it by itself. The colours would dry out if not used frequently and I seldom needed to print in colour. The cost of the tubs of colour was the reason why the bridge department gave the library the photocopier and librarian thought she was getting a bargain, a high speed photocopier/printer for nothing when she was replacing our worn out photocopier. It was only when she was on holidays that I could convince her superior that we had been sold a pup by the bridge department. Yes, he saw the reason and bought a new photocopier, a much simpler photocopier that only did black and white. If I needed colours I could use the graphics department printers/photocopiers and pay them for the copies.

Someone has suggested that I may have used too much vinegar to set the dye. Yes, I know the vinegar is used as a mordant and the mordant sets the dye and fixes it to the material being dyed. I believe that would have been the cause of my blue turning a delicate shade of light green. I knitted a shawl from the wool, using the pale green with some pre dyed blue wool tops I had purchased from Sal's Wool Den, together with some white, undyed alpaca and some yellow mohair that a friend had dyed using food dye. I did not knit in strips but random changes of the colours and not following any sequence of colour changes.

We used to dye a lot in the 70s but I always hated the smell of the mordants. I have dyed using natural materials, especially those that do not require a mordant, such as beetroot, onion skins and certain eucalyptus leaves. I prefer to use the natural colours of the wool and there are so many different shades of grey, brown and fawn available. If I need colour I buy pre dyed wool tops from Helen O' Neill at Sals Wood Den. I just thought I would try the food dyes.


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## Knitted by Nan

IndigoSpinner said:


> When people talk about "black" wool, they mean it's not really white. By "black" they might mean a light tan, grey, brown, charcoal or anything up to real black.
> 
> If you use wool that's actually, really, black, it's unlikely that the dye will be visible at all, or maybe you could get red or blue highlights when the light hits it right.
> 
> If you use wool that's light, but not white, you'll get colors that are more muted and/or heathery looking.


Black wool to me is black wool, or alpaca. All other colours are described by their colour - light grey, steel grey, fawn, etc. The beauty in a coloured fleece is in the variety of shades that are in the same fleece. I always knit with three balls of wool when I knit from a coloured fleece, one row with each ball. That way you avoid the sudden changes or bands of colours that you sometimes see when people knit with natural, undyed coloured fleece. But dyeing a grey or fawn fleece with dyes can produce a variation in the colouring which could be very attractive.


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## sockyarn

Yes it can. It also depends on what color you want to dye it.


Cdambro said:


> Can you elaborate on dyeing black wool? How much does it take the color? Did you use darker colors? I just bought a little bit of black alpaca and was wondering if it can be dyed. Thanks.


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## sockyarn

Yes, It will have a glow of the other color even if it is very black.


IndigoSpinner said:


> When people talk about "black" wool, they mean it's not really white. By "black" they might mean a light tan, grey, brown, charcoal or anything up to real black.
> 
> If you use wool that's actually, really, black, it's unlikely that the dye will be visible at all, or maybe you could get red or blue highlights when the light hits it right.
> 
> If you use wool that's light, but not white, you'll get colors that are more muted and/or heathery looking.


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## sockyarn

From my experience with Kool-Aid some colors do need several packets of the color to give a strong result. I would think that might be true with the food coloring also. The amount of vinegar dose make a difference.


Knitted by Nan said:


> As I said, I used food colouring to dye the wool. Queen Rainbow food colours, an Australian firm. There are only four colour in the packet - red, blue, green and yellow, and the green is a dark green. Kool Aid is not readily available in shops here. I can buy it at one specialist lolly shop and it is expensive.
> 
> I used the blue food colouring. If you use it is icing or cooking the end result is royal blue, not the pale green my wool turned out. The colour in the bottle is dark royal blue.
> 
> I know all about colours and mixing colours. It was my ex who had the problem with that. He would mix all the left over colours together and end up with mucky brown. He would not listen. We were taught at school that the primary colours are red, blue and yellow. All other colours are obtained by mixing these colours. Green is obtained by mixing blue and yellow, orange by mixing red and yellow, and so on.
> 
> I also know about the process of colours in printing. The photocopier/printer at Main Roads was a colour printer and had 12 different tubs of colour plus black to get the desired colours in the photocopying. Those tubs of colour were very expensive and the black was free, but you had to order a whole set of 12 colours to get the free black. I only needed the black but could not buy it by itself. The colours would dry out if not used frequently and I seldom needed to print in colour. The cost of the tubs of colour was the reason why the bridge department gave the library the photocopier and librarian thought she was getting a bargain, a high speed photocopier/printer for nothing when she was replacing our worn out photocopier. It was only when she was on holidays that I could convince her superior that we had been sold a pup by the bridge department. Yes, he saw the reason and bought a new photocopier, a much simpler photocopier that only did black and white. If I needed colours I could use the graphics department printers/photocopiers and pay them for the copies.
> 
> Someone has suggested that I may have used too much vinegar to set the dye. Yes, I know the vinegar is used as a mordant and the mordant sets the dye and fixes it to the material being dyed. I believe that would have been the cause of my blue turning a delicate shade of light green. I knitted a shawl from the wool, using the pale green with some pre dyed blue wool tops I had purchased from Sal's Wool Den, together with some white, undyed alpaca and some yellow mohair that a friend had dyed using food dye. I did not knit in strips but random changes of the colours and not following any sequence of colour changes.
> 
> We used to dye a lot in the 70s but I always hated the smell of the mordants. I have dyed using natural materials, especially those that do not require a mordant, such as beetroot, onion skins and certain eucalyptus leaves. I prefer to use the natural colours of the wool and there are so many different shades of grey, brown and fawn available. If I need colour I buy pre dyed wool tops from Helen O' Neill at Sals Wood Den. I just thought I would try the food dyes.


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## sockyarn

In in using Kool-Aid it did fined that the amount of vinegar did make a difference. As I used the same number of packets of Kool-Aid and the only thing that changed was the amount of vinegar. With using the correct amount of vinegar I got a lovely red and using way too much vinegar I got close to a magenta or dark red. That is when I decided that it would behove to look up the directions instead of just winging it.


IndigoSpinner said:


> The vinegar didn't do anything to the dye but help it set.
> 
> There are some of the colors of Kool Aid (and they only seem to be in the blue/green range) that look one color in the liquid dye, and actually dye a different color. It seems to be something inherent in the dye, and I doubt that the vinegar has anything to do with the apparent change in color.
> 
> If you look up color systems, there are several different ones for how the color is displayed.
> 
> White light, for instance, is composed of all the colors of the spectrum. If you use all the colors of the spectrum to mix pigments (paints), you'll get black or a very dark brown. To get colors properly on a TV screen, you only need Red, Green, and Blue (called RGB). But to print different colors on a press, you need Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black (CMYK).
> 
> I don't know what it is about that one color, but it appears blue in liquid form, but dyes green. I don't have enough experience to state this definitively, but it only seems to be this one flavor of Kool Aid. I haven't run into it in anything else. But then, I haven't tried every dye made and every type of dyestuff.


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