Dyeing Playsilks

For Christmas this year, Josie is going to get a stocking full of playsilks. Online they sell for $15-20 a piece (for the 35x35 ones), but when you are savy (like me) you can find un-dyed ones online for $5 a piece and dye them yourself!

I decided to use Kool-Aid (because it's cheap and you can buy it nearly anywhere); but I was definitely intrigued by the use of Easter Egg Dyeing kits (from the posts I read, the colors seem to turn out BOLDER with the Egg Dyeing kits).

Nearly all the tutorial posts I read said to use the microwave to dye the silks. I, however, do not own a microwave safe bowl large enough to dye anything in. Solution: dye the silks on the stove using my enamel coated dutch oven. Genius! By dyeing them on the stove, I was also able to avoid the scalding hot water (and inevitable 2nd degree burns) that result from microwaving water in glass for 9 minutes.

Since I am no good at following directions, here is my (not so precise) method:

In a large bowl (or in my case, large stockpot), add about 6 cups of warm/hot water and a decent "splash" of white vinegar (probably close to a cup...but I have no idea). Add 2 scarves and let them soak while you are getting everything else ready. ** I only pre-soaked 2 scarves at a time, but you can do however many you'd like at once...probably next time I'll just soak them all at the same time**

In a medium sized bowl, add 2 cups of hot water and 1/2 cup of vinegar. Next, add 3 packets of your color preference of Kool-Aid (Grape = Purple, Pink Lemonade = Pink, Orange = Orange and so on....but don't get tricked by the packaging. The blue packet of fruit punch is, in fact, red. Classic Kool-Aid man trickery). Stir until all the contents are dissolved

Add the mixture to the dutch oven/stockpot/cauldron/what have you and heat over medium-high setting.

Fill up the medium bowl, that you used to mix the Kool-Aid, with hot water and add that to the pot too. *You want there to be enough water in the pot to cover the scarf*

Take one of the scarves, and add it to the dye pot. Using a large wooden spoon (the handle worked best), stir the scarf. Make sure that all areas of the scarf are submerged; otherwise you won't have a nice even dye (unless that's what you're going for).

Once all the dye is soaked up, and the water is (nearly) clear, move it to the sink and rinse it with cold water until all the extra dye is washed out. **The red dye took FOREVER to rinse clean**

Hang on a clothes line or drying rack and let dry overnight.

Iron on low to get all the wrinkles out (or as wrinkle free as possible) and Voila!

I am super happy with the way they turned out! I kind of want to order some more and do some color mixing to get really cool colors.

this picture has nothing to do with playsilks...I just liked it