Kool-Aid Dyeing Wool Soakers

We cloth diaper Monkey and my favorite diaper is a Baby Kicks Fitted and a wool cover over top. Wool breaths, absorbs and releases moisture without transferring it to his pants and wears like iron. It does need to be hand washed but not frequently (I do ever few weeks) and lanolized (soaked in water with emulsified lanolin), which I do at the same time. I should add that I work for a cloth diaper store, Diaper Lab, doing customer support which both fuels and funds a cloth diaper addiction. Some wool soakers come in colours, but I have two that came undyed. When I bough the first I complained to my manager about the plainness and she suggested Kool-aid dyeing it.

The Aristocrats before. Boring.

Now almost a year later the time has come. My Mum is a weaver so in addition to the usual childhood arts and crafts, we did a lot of fiber arts. I am sure we used more Kool-Aid to die wool then we drank. Mostly we died skeins of wool in mason jars in the sun. I still wear have a pair of mittens she made me from yarn I dyed (I was probably about five at the time). Kool-Aid dyeing is very easy, very colour fast and giving that you are using food stuff, very safe. The only downside is that it only works on protein fibers, like wool, and not plant fibers like cotton. I chose Grape and Tropical Punch which I thought would be blue, but is red. For a decent colour chart look here. This is pricey stuff and should set you back about 30 cents a package.

Here is what I did:
Wet wool. Mix Kool-Aid with enough hot water (tap hot) to cover the wool. The directions I found online suggested one pack to one skein. I used two in each pot. There is enough acid in the Kool-Aid that a mordant is unnecessary.Then keep the water hot, either in the sun or on low on the stove. Since it is cloudy and cold out, I put it on the stove and kept it at the hottest temperature that I could stand to stick my finger in. I like way the cream cuff at the top looks so I kept it out of the dye on the pull on soakers.
For snap soaker I wanted to try for an ombre effect but I neglected to pull it out/dip it in more. I set the timer for half an hour during that stirred them maybe half a dozen times. The purple soaker had absorbed all the colour during that time. The red became pink, but still had enough pigment left to do a second soaker. I changed the chopsticks up and tied them with hair elastics, which worked very well.
I pulled them out and rinsed in cold water to cool them off. The colour did I saw in the pot is the same as the colour after the rinse, which is the colour they dried too.

Loveybums Wool Interlock Cover

Kissa's Wool LOVER Cover
The colour is a little mottled from the poor circulation of being in a small pot. I was too impatient to wait for the bigger one.

Aristocrats wool cover

Finished Quilt and most of a stroller liner too

As Monkey says, ta da. Finished quilt. I got the binding on yesterday during nap. Monkey woke up early and insisted on sitting on it and playing with it. Blankets are his favourite toy right now.
You can see some of the backing flannel in the top corner.

Yesterday was quite a productive day. I have a bunch of paper bags from an epic Trader Joe's run and it occurred to me the other day to cut them open and use them as pattern paper for the kimono. I figured while I was cutting and measuring I should cut a pattern for the stroller liner. But the main seat has the winter bunting Bundle Me in it, so I decided to start with the rumble seat that Monkey will use when the new baby comes along. I have had the main fabric for the seat liner since last Christmas and the backing since last spring.
Monkey was in a good mood as long as I was close so he sat in the highchair and coloured on the paper scraps. He also got to try out scissors, but is still too little to really make them work.
The seat flares on the bottom, so I careful measured everything and drafted an accurate pattern. But that meant binding it with bias binding, which meant making bias binding, so I folded the pattern into a rectangle and that actually looked better.
The stroller liner pattern I found online used pretty fluffy batting, but I don't like the look and don't need the warmth. The opposite actually. So I decided to go with flannel and pulled something leftover out of my stash that is too loosely woven to work really well on its own. I cut that and the top owl print to the exact size. The backing fabric I cut about 2 cm bigger all the way around to let me fold it over twice and use to bind the front. I cut it freehand because I am lazy.
I got this cut out while Monkey watched Elmo's world having tired of watching me cut brown paper. You can see the flannel has a little print. I got away with turning it over so the print faced the mostly solid dark fabric.
During nap time I sewed. I quilted the seam lines for the seat and overhang fold and decided that was enough with the button holes to get the straps through. The binding/overturn worked great, even with slightly fussy corners.
I was really worried about the button holes and how they would look. I have only done the one on the bottom of the seat, but it looks good. I got it in just the right place and it is the perfect size for the strap. However the buckle at the top of the strap has not a chance of threading through. I stewed last night and think I know how to fix it. Tough because I already cut it. Four more minimum to go, with another four optional since there are three strap heights.

I will have lots of extra fabric after the main seat liner and am toying with what do do with it. What would owls look cute on?

New projects

I have two new projects going or in mind.
1. Kimono(s) for new baby. Summer baby and I want to sew for him or her. This is the idea I like best. Summer so I will not add a lining but will do French seams. Perhaps some will have pants or diaper covers to match. Which means I need to find a diaper cover pattern or alter a pants one.
2. Longies. Wool diaper cover with full legs for James. I love wool diaper covers and have several really nice felted merino wool sweaters. I cut something out this morning using a short soaker as a pattern. We will see how it turns out.

Green Quilt top finished

The green quilt top is finished.
Talking to the quilter's at church I found a sewing machine repair man that came to the apartment, took then machine to repair it and returned it good as new. All in half a week and for about what I paid for a tune up in a shop. The timing was off apparently and I need to oil it regularly.
So today while Monkey was at daycare I started sewing and two hours later, I had a quilt top. I ended up with more of one green flower than I would have liked ideally, but the whole thing worked out. Now ironing, basting together, quilting and binding. Monkey is back in daycare Thursday morning.
Photo to come.