Pack Rat Magazine is on the bus
Story time. Gather round kiddies, pull up your sit-upons. Once upon a time I was a teenager. And because the rules of teenagerdom say, nay, decree that you will think you are a) way cooler than anyone who has ever existed and b) the most boring person to ever shlump around the Earth’s surface, I went WAY out of my way to separate myself from “the pack.” This included such outside-of-the-box thinking as: wearing blue lipstick; sporting socks on my arms (a la Tank Girl); strolling around in Cat In the Hat stripped tights; etc. Me and my Hot Topic wardrobe were beyond the status quo. And of course, like every person looking to rebel, I was all about dying my hair. I bought a lot of Manic Panic in those days, but was constantly disappointed when after a week’s worth of showers my Technicolor green hair would fade to a sickly green wash, the kind that kids who spent too much time in cholrinated pools had. But lo, some helpful person turned me on to using Kool-Aid as a dye. Oh the joy! The rapture! The color was intense and the effects permanent. Plus, it was a million times cheaper then the real dyes.
To use Kool-Aid as a hair dye required a microwave, a packet of said summertime fun beverage, and a microwave safe dish that you didn’t mind staining some ridiculous colors. You dumped the full packet of Kool-Aid (the various red flavors worked best) into the microwave safe dish, added about a cup of water, and nuked it for about two minutes, or until the liquid began to boil. Then you dipped your hair in while the whole thing was still hot and voila, you were part of the resistance movement. The sucky part was trying to get it all the way up to your roots. You didn’t want to burn your scalp, but you didn’t want your streak of fire-red hair to only go half way up. I scalded my fingers many a time, trying to figure that one out. I still don’t have any good answers.
Now that I am a million years older, I some times miss those dyed streaks of hair (and hair wraps. Remember hair wraps?), thus I was totally stoked when I came across this tutorial from Snowangels on how to use essentially the same technique to color yarn. She uses both the microwave (for single color skeins) and the stove top (for a tie-dyed look) to create vibrant pallets for all her knitting, crocheting, needle point, etc. needs. Just looking at the photos takes me back. And then I remember that being a teenager was as much fun as getting kicked in the crotch. I am glad that now I can get jazzed up about dying yarn instead of all that other crap. You know what else sucked? Cafeteria pizza. I’m just saying.
