How to dye a long gradient with wool and Kool Aid

This tutorial is going to show you how to dye a 200 yard skein of plain wool to have a long, slow gradient. This sort of coloring is popular this season in a lot of trendy sweaters from Urban Outfitters. It is also similar to a lot of self striping yarns, just a bigger stripe. Here is a picture of a shawl that I made using some wool that was dyed with this technique.

You can see that the gradient is not entirely smooth, it is kind of variegated, which I think is a nice effect.This is because the wool is essentially tie dyed.

OK, lets start the tut...

You will need:

2-3 packets of kool-aid in your favorite color.
A skein of 100% wool, I used Paton's classic wool
A pot
A stove
A spoon or tongs
Rubber gloves, unless you don't mind chromatic fingertips.

Take your skein...

And roll it into a ball. Don't wrap loosely, make sure there is some tension on the yarn as you wrap. 

Put about 1.5" of water into your pot and add a packet of kool aid. Heat the mixture on the stove until it is steaming.

Add the ball of yarn to the hot pot.

Use the spoon or your hands to move the ball around and to cover all sides with dye.

You will know when to take the yarn out of the pot because the color will be sucked out of the liquid and into the fibers. The kool aid water will be almost totally clear.

Take the ball to the sink and run water over it until the entire ball is soaked.

Fill the pot again, this time with 3" of water and 1 pack of kool aid. Heat the pot until the liquid begins to steam.

Put the wet ball of yarn into the pot, this time, the capillary action of the wet yarn will draw the dye deeper into the ball.

Make sure to roll the ball around and cover every side with dye. When you feel you are done, take the yarn out of the pot and rinse it under cold water.

When the ball cools, you can wind the yarn into a skein.

you will see the inside of the ball slowly getting lighter. Take the skein and wrap it in a towel to take out some of the moisture.

Hang it on a hanger to dry.

There are a lot of projects that you can do with this yarn. some of you may remember the ironic gnome and some chrysanthemum hats that I made with yarn dyed this way.

raspberry lemonade flavor on white yarn

This uses black Rit dye on aqua wool instead of kool aid.

This uses cherry kool aid with a bit of orange on pink yarn.

I hope this is useful for everyone who has asked how to make the gradient. Please post pictures of your projects if you use this yarn, it will be a lot of fun to see what people do with it.