Rustic Rainbow Experiment

For a very long time now I have been "dying" to try "dyeing". The opportunity arose last Thursday when I thought I would be alone all day. My two youngest boys and my husband were driving to New York to see a Yankee game. Then the last minute my youngest bailed and didn't want to go. He's really not a baseball fan like my middle son. We figured it was better for him to stay with me rather than have him whining all day...a very long day.

I still did my dye experiment. He was a little bit interested, so that was nice and he did help me now and then when I needed an extra pair of hands. I thought I would experiment with all the colors of kool-aid I could find and I also tried just the plain old ordinary food colors. Here's the hand painted skein all laid out with the various colors:
Sure was a rather messy job. I really don't have the necessary equipment and I think I was a little over zealous trying all those colors. Picking up the skein to try and put it in a pyrex glass dish was not too successful. Excess dye went every where and then to find out the dish wouldn't fit into my microwave! I resorted to using my largest corning ware casserole. I kept my fingers crossed that the colors wouldn't run together:
Then I microwaved it and set it on the counter to cool. I read that it needs to be completely cooled before rinsing in order for the dye to adhere.

Then the call came. My 90 year old father activated his Lifeline button. We dropped everything and drove fast over to Dad's apartment. The last two times this had happened...it was false alarms. I hoped and prayed this was the case once again. This time he was in trouble. He was ok thank goodness, but he had fallen in the bathroom and couldn't get up. It was such a good thing that my youngest didn't go to New York for he was there to help me get Grampa up. No broken bones, but he was bruised and bleeding from a blow to back of his neck behind his ear. He hit the corner of the vanity. To make a long story short...we spent the whole afternoon in the ER. Because he had a head injury they did a CAT scan and various other tests, but everything came back fine and he didn't even need any stitches, which I had thought he might need. Thankfully everything turned out fine and he was ok.

Now for the rest of the story...the yarn which was very hot when we left now had completely cooled off. I rinsed it and it looked fine...hung it to dry and then today I wound it into a ball:
I don't have a ball winder, but I used my trusty M&M mini's container and wound a center pull ball. Rustic rainbow is what I am calling this yarn. I won't tell you what my boys are calling it ;) Hand painting is ok. I'm really not wild about dyeing in general. A little too messy for me. Maybe if I had only used a couple of colors I would have been happier, but I just had to see what all the colors would look like. I'm not saying I'll never dye again, but I really think this is one job that should be left to the experts!