Who I am....

I am a lot of things, 

     a wife

                 a mother 

                      a business owner

                   a hobby farmer

                                                     a crafter.... And the list continues.

                    and sometimes I am also a failure.

But my mother taught me how to bounce back. She taught me that failure happens. Sometimes even after working your hardest, trying your best, and doing everything you can.... you fail. But failure is just failure, it is neither a definition nor an ending. it is simply a part of life. One of course I don't enjoy as much as success. 

I am a wife, ass cheesy as it sounds I meet my husband when I was in high school and we had an on again, off again relationship. We married 6 years after we met and I started writing horribly cheesy and sappy poetry about his "Mahogany eyes". 

I am also a mother, a role I love most days. My kids are these loud amazing people! When I became a mother I thought these little people were shapeless blobs of clay that it was my job to mold. Instead I have learned that my children are amazing people who came complete with unique personalities and quirks. I get to be along for the ride as they (and I) discover who they are and help them soften any rough edges. . . . . and then there are weeks like this one when the baby has an ear infection, my toddler is extra cranky, and my big kids are running crazy. On weeks like this I am so excited to tuck everyone in bed and wrap my fingers around some beautiful yarn.

Kool-Aid dyeing

I have been pinteresting  and stumbled across dyeing yarn with kool aid. I am so intrigued. I love the idea of dyeing with something so cheap and safe for my kids to help with. I did mention I've got 5 kiddos that love making chaos and messes err.... I mean helping in every way right?

With kids the plan rarely works out, and today that was the motto, with dye on top!

The plan: I made and felted a dozen bow ties. I wanted to use a muffin tin with lots of different colors to make multicolored bow ties. I also had made 2 balls of yarn each about 200 yards to try dyeing
with both Kool Aid and traditional dye. 

Heres our set up:

Yep thats a cup of soup.

A couple half dozen muffin tins to put and make 12 different colors. I was so excited, and so were the kids. They got to decide 6 colors to keep straight and 6 colors to mix. We simply put in 2 envelopes in each muffin spot added hot water (about a half cup) and then let the insanity of 4 kids trying to dye 3 bow ties each run.

I would love to tell you exactly how long each bow tie sat in the dye.... It was about 13 "No, really just pick a color," and 10 times I had to count to 10 so as not to micromanage. Ahhh, sometimes its hard to let my kids be kids even if its not the way I would do it. But each bow tie turned out so cute! I think each one sat for 7.2 minutes .. haha, right! I have  no idea!

Now lets talk about dyeing the balls. It was so fun! I loved trying my hand at making a long umbre! I decided to try to make each ball bright pink fading to blue. one with Kool Aid and one with RIT dye. But instead of following the RIT directions I used it like I did the Kool Aid. So I added the RIT to one container and then added 2 cups of hot water. Then I added 6 envelopes of kool aid to the other container and added 2 cups of hot water.

So.. wool balls float. Who knew! I didn't. So I had to turn them and hold them down, constantly turning them to try and dye them even. And in the end I had red fingertips and beautiful yarn. The Kool Aid went through the yarn further then the RIT die did, probably because I did it my way didn't following the instructions.


What I learned:
- Wool Balls float
 -  Kids will be Kids.... and sometimes the mommy needs to count to 10 to let them.
- Next time dye on concrete, we ended up with muddy mess from rinsing out the dye.
- When dyeing with Kool Aid, the dyed item smells yummy!
- expect dyed fingers:

And the End result:
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Stay tuned! Coming up pictures of the finished bow ties, and the amazing yarn I dyed!