Rainbow Wool

What to do on a record hot Texas summer day? Dye some wool!
My daughter's teacher had sent me this link sometime ago about a fun wool dyeing project for young ones.
A Child's Dream
At first I was a bit reluctant because the coloring agents were unsweetened Kool-Aid, but it was so easy and gave a wonderful result.
My little miss has never tried Kool-Aid and after our dyeing session she believes the rainbow packets of artificial color are only for dyeing wool. She said "If I drink this, my insides will get dyed weird Mom." Children are so smart!

ITEMS NEEDED
Wool roving, about a 8 inch piece for each color
6 old glass mason jars (I used a Pyrex bowl too)
Small Kool-Aid packets (unsweetened)
- They were 5 for $1 at the local grocery store
Bamboo skewers for mixing if you don't want to have dyed hands
Hot water
HOT SUN!

First we soaked the wool roving pieces in a bowl with some warm water.
We filled each jar a quarter of the way full of water and then added the Kool-Aid powder to each one. Then I filled it halfway full with hot water from our tea kettle.
Then we took the pieces of wool roving and placed them in each colored water jar and stirred with the bamboo skewer. Soon it was time for the jars to make a beautiful rainbow in the sunshine.

It was about 95 degrees out by 10am. We left the jars out for about 4 hours, coming outside to stir a bit then running back in.
Then it was time to wash the wool. I got a large bowl and filled it with warm water.
Amazingly, for most of the colors, all of the dye was absorbed into the wool! The water was clear and we were able to rinse it out with our hands.

Then we hung the wool rainbow in the shade on our hemp twine light line and it dried in about 1 hour.
It looked so beautiful and we have yet to think of a project for it. We did give a bit of it as a present to one of my daughter's friends in a birthday gift.
It's fun to share wool love.

I'm going to start thinking of doing some plant-based dyeing now, but this was a great beginner project.