Ice Dyed Silk Scarf with Kool Aid

I tried out ice dyeing with fiber-reactive Procion dyes at a workshop recently. It was tons of fun, so I wanted to try it with Kool Aid! I waited for a hot day, broke out the drink mixes, and tried it out. Here's how to do it for yourself.

Materials:

• An undyed silk scarf. You can buy these at Dharma Trading Company or Thai Silks. I used an 8" x 54" chiffon silk scarf from Dharma. 
• Note: This will ONLY work on certain fibers. It will work on silk and wool, but it will NOT work on cotton!
• Packets of unsweetened Kool Aid mix in one or more colors/flavors. I used a total of 9 packets: 4 cherry, 3 black cherry, and 2 grape. 
• Tip: Look at the picture of the glass to determine the color of the mix, not the color of the packet. Certain packets are a different color than the mix. For example, the Tropical Punch flavor has a red mix, but the packet is blue.
• A dish or bowl for dyeing. If you don't have a sunny day, or if you're impatient, you might decide to speed up the process in the microwave later. Because of that, you might want to choose a microwave-safe dish that is small enough to fit in your microwave.
• Another bowl, dish, or bucket for soaking your scarf
• Rubber gloves
• A dust mask. This is important so you don't inhale the floating dust from the mix. If you can't get one of these, you should at least hold a damp paper towel over your nose and mouth while dyeing.
• Synthrapol, Professional Textile Detergent, or dish soap. This is to wash off any residue on the silk from the silk worms, scarf production, or from your hands. I used dish soap.
• White vinegar. This helps the dye bind to the silk. It isn't absolutely essential because the Kool Aid contains citric acid, but it will let you know that the dye will definitely stay in your scarf.
• Plastic wrap. This keeps the heat in your dish while dyeing and keeps anything outside from blowing into your dye and disrupting it.
• And of course, ICE! I have an ice maker, but if you are making ice with trays, make more ice than you think you will need just in case. Or you could buy a bag of ice. This will be more than you need for one scarf, but it is a good option if you are making multiple scarves.

Here is (most of) your materials. Once you have everything, you're ready to go!

Fill your bowl with some warm water, place your scarf in the bowl, and use a little dish soap (or Synthrapol or Professional Textile Detergent) to wash it.

Rinse your scarf well. Then, add some more water and your scarf to your bowl. Add a little vinegar (How much is up to you. I probably added between a half a cup and a cup, but I didn't measure.). Swish your scarf around in the mixture and then let it soak for about a half hour. Wait impatiently.

Dump out the water/vinegar and squeeze out most of the water. Now place the scarf in your dish. You can arrange the scarf in any way you want. I zig-zagged my scarf.

Evenly distribute ice in the dish. Make sure that all parts of the scarf are covered or the dye will not reach that spot.

Sprinkle the different colored mixes around the ice. Make sure to use your gloves and dust mask for this step! Cover the all of the ice. You can overlap colors somewhat, but if you put two colors on top of each other they will mix. You may want that to happen! The ice causes different sections of dye to hit the scarf at different times, so the results are truly unpredictable. That's the fun of this dyeing process! Here are some progress pictures.

Here's what mine looked like after I was done.

Now wrap your dish up in plastic wrap. I crossed it over the top so it was completely covered.

Find a sunny spot to put your dish outside. Check on it every once in a while to make sure it's still in the sun. After two hours I went outside and found out that it was in the shade! If you do move it, be careful so the dye doesn't slosh out.

Wait. Take some time to appreciate nature.

After several hours, it's time to see if it worked! I put my dish outside at 11am, and around 5:30pm I decided to bring it in. Some clouds and a storm were moving in, so I lost my solar fuel for the dyeing process. You want to keep it outside for at least 4-5 hours. This is what my dish looked like when I went outside to get it. You can see lots of condensation inside the plastic wrap.

Unwrap the dish and pour out the excess dye.

Transfer your scarf to the sink. It may look like it doesn't have much color variation, but the pattern will emerge as you rinse out the excess dye.

Rinse your scarf with cool water. I put my bowl in the sink so I could swish the scarf in the water. Keep rinsing until the water is almost clear. This might take a while.

Use your dish soap (or Synthrapol or Professional Textile Detergent) to wash the scarf. Rinse and repeat until the water runs clear. This might take a while, too.

Hang up your scarf somewhere to dry. I placed my bowl underneath it to catch the drips. A bit of dye dripped out of the drying scarf, but don't worry too much about it. This doesn't take long!

Check your scarf for dryness occasionally. When it is almost dry, iron on the silk setting. This will help to set the dye. To be on the safe side, hand wash it separately from other items if it needs to be washed.

And ta-da! You're done! Wear it with pride, because you did it!

This was a lot of fun, even though you have to wait hours to see the results. This would be a great activity to do with friends or with older children. Make them for yourself or for gifts, compare your results with your friends', and most importantly, have FUN!

Here are some of the blogs where I found inspiration. Their tutorials are for dyeing yarn, and you freeze the Kool Aid into ice.

• The Green Mockingbird
• Maiya Knits. Mayhem Ensues.

Hopefully, I will be able to make a microwave-only tutorial. For now, if you want to test this, vent the plastic wrap, microwave for two minutes, let it rest 2-5 minutes, and microwave again. The dish should be hot. You may need to microwave again. I haven't tested this method, so let me know how it goes if you try it.

As always, leave a comment if you try it or if you have questions.