Soda Series - Dyeing Yarn From the Grocery Aisle

When I approached the end of the first day of the Dyepot Weekly Kickstarter Campaign, I was so excited because I knew that you were going to help make this exciting series of yarn dyeing videos a reality.  I ran to the grocery store and shopped in the soda aisle picking up some of the brightest colors I could find.

Just doing some grocery shopping... The Dyepot Weekly Kickstarter campaign is now 95% funded! Are you as excited as I am? (Link is in my profile.) #dyepotweekly #kickstarter #youtube #youtuber #dyepot #dyeyarn #foodcoloring #indiedyer #yarn #dye #handdyed.

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It is more economical to dye yarn with food coloring itself, or even concentrated drink mixes like Kool-Aid, than it is to use bottles of soda.  However, the bright colors were calling me, and I was curious just how much food coloring there is in one of these bottles.  Check out the following videos to find out!

Gatorade

Gatorade comes in a wide variety of colors.  I've gone through diet Gatorade phases, and my favorite flavors are lemon lime (which my dad used after basketball games while I was a kid) and grape.  This time, I shopped the aisles for the brightest colors I could find. I selected "Green Apple" and "Grape" for this dyeing experiment.  I dip dyed the yarn into both colors to create a special gradient.

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In this experiment, I used KnitPicks Bare Stroll Fingering Weight Yarn, a 75% superwash merino 25% nylon blend.  This is one of my favorite yarns to dye with, and you can see in the video just how quickly it absorbed the dye from the Gatorade.

Hawaiian Punch

When I opened the bottle of Hawaiian Punch, I felt transported back to my child hood.  The smell reminded me of birthday parties and class celebrations.  I haven't tasted it in years (and I didn't in this video) but I remembered how this red beverage stained anything it touched.  What would it do to yarn?

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I decided to dye 100 g of bare Wool of the Andes worsted weight yarn (100% wool) with the whole 2 L bottle of soda.

Fanta

I'm not sure I've ever consumed Fanta, but the commercials were super catchy.  I wanted to add something orange to the mix, and I thought it would be fun to test out a carbonated beverage.

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To add another twist to this experiment, I decided to try some resist dyeing.  I tied off the 100% wool bare Wool of the Andes worsted weight yarn tightly with some crochet cotton to leave some white patches.  I then dyed the entire skein of yarn in the 2 L soda.

Coke Zero

On each of the soda series videos I released, I kept getting requests for more and more beverages.  People really wanted to see what would happen if you dyed yarn with Coke (or its equivalent.)  Coke contains "caramel color", which is derived from dairy to create that beautiful brown.  Will it bind to yarn like red #3 and yellow #5?  There is only one way to find out, and that was to put some 100% wool yarn (bare Wool of the Andes worsted weight) in Coke Zero Sugar and turn up the heat.

I am still getting requests for more sodas.  I don't have plans to explore more flavors of Gatorade or different colors of soda.  Depth of color might vary, but you should expect something like Grape Soda to behave similarly to the orange Fanta.  I do, however, plan to play around more with concentrated and powdered beverage mixes.  Stay tuned for Mio and other concentrated liquid beverages! (These should come up in an early episode of Dyepot Weekly but I'm saving this for one of the sponsored videos.)

Thank you so much for all of your support.  Not only did we reach our goal, but we smashed the goal.  I will now produce at least 35 Dyepot Weekly episodes, and they start in one week!  Since we hit some bonus episodes, I might even release more than one video a week at first so I can start sharing the sponsored videos sooner.  What do you think?   If you haven't backed the Dyepot Weekly Kickstarter yet, please check it out.   You still have a week to pick out a fun and exciting reward, many of which include amazing hand dyed yarn!  I'm so excited to go on this journey with you!


None of the selections in this video were sponsored.  All opinions are my own.  I recently became a KnitPicks Affiliate because I love their yarns and have been using them for years.  All KnitPicks links in this post are affiliate links.