(with apologies to Tom Wolfe)

As we know, an iHo with a digital camera can be a dangerous thing. But when you combine an iHo with a digital camera, 5 spools of mohair yarn, and twenty packages of Kool-Aid (5 for $1.00 at Kroger), things can get really weird. I got the idea for dyeing my yarn from instructions by Martha Lazar, owner of Urban Knitter in Brooklyn, published in Debbie Stoller's book, Stitch 'N Bitch: The Knitter's Handbook, which I highly recommend. I thought Martha's instructions were very clear, but could have been even better with a few photos and extra tips--et voilà, these pages of supplementary material.

Even if you have no interest in knitting or fiber arts, you may find the process interesting, or at the very least, amusing. So do read on.

Items you need, some of which are pictured here:

• Enough yarn to make the sweater or item you want to knit or crochet. Synthetic fibers will not work, likewise cotton--you need wool or mohair or another animal fiber. (Like the designer of this sweater, I used Halcyon's Victorian Brushed Mohair in color #103)
• Turkey basters. (Want to get a strange look from the checker at Kroger? Have three turkey basters and twenty packages of Kool-Aid and nothing else in your cart.)
  
• Microwaveable dish, big enough to hold a big wet hank of goat hair, but not too big to fit in your microwave.
  
• Plastic everything. Plastic bowls to hold your Kool-Aid dye (I found that clear disposable food containers worked well and did not become stained at all), a plastic tablecloth, a plastic cutting board to lay your yarn on while squirting the dye on.
  
• I had plastic gloves but forgot to put them on and that was fine.
  
• Wooden spoon or chopsticks to handle steaming hot yarn with
  
• Oven mitts for taking dish out of microwave.
• A huge roll of paper towels for mopping up extra dye and spills

It goes without saying that while doing this, you should wear clothes you don't care about, unless you want two dyeing projects for the price of one.

The process:

First you soak the hanks of mohair yarn in the sink for approximately 20 minutes. (Longer is okay--I found this out the hard way, as you shall see.)

I decided three colors were all I could handle: pink, blue, and light green. To achieve these colors I used the Kool-Aid flavors Lemon-Lime, Pink Lemonade, and Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade. (Do you sense a citrus theme here?) My recipe for one cup of dye consisted of: one pack of Kool-Aid, one cup of water, and one ounce of vinegar per color. For a lighter color you can add more water. The only color I diluted was the lemon-lime.

So here are my colors. I also tried to make a light purple using Cherry and Berry Blue, but what I got was a shade I named "Black Hole," because it was pitch black and impermeable to light. So down the drain with that experiment.

Ewwww.

Now I was all ready to make a big old mess in my kitchen, almost to the point of firing the first turkey baster full of pink at the soaking wet yarn when—the power went out.

There I was, on a hundred degree day, with a sink full of wet mohair. The temperature began to rise quickly, the house to smell distressingly of warm wet goat and vinegar. And I started to freak out a bit, because when I called my neighbor to see if his power was out too, he said he'd heard "a sizzling sound" when the lightning struck (there was lightning?). Last time he heard a sound like that we didn't get power back for five hours. Argh!

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