More Snow Dyeing...

After my experimentation with snow dyeing last week (here and here), I couldn't resist doing a little more. I got some comments from people who don't have snow (lucky for them!), but I understand this can be done using ice cubes too, so you could always buy a bag of ice, or make lots of your own and see what you get. I'm sure if you Google it you'll find some helpful tips.

This time around, I used several colours in the same bin: yellow, green, red, purple and black. I used one larger piece of fabric (about ½ a metre) as well as two skeins of thread.

Here you can see the bin in three stages, the first with snow piled on the fibre, then with the Procion MX dye powder sprinkled on and the snow beginning to melt.

   

 I'm not as happy with the resulting fabric this time.  Although the colour mix is good, they're too soft and pastel for my liking.
















Enter some Procion H that I have in my stash.  It's idea for silk painting or dyeing threads and silk rovings, but I decided to play...

Notice I don't really care for wearing gloves. LOL

Notice all those little brown spots on my finger tips?  After showering and washing my hair (washing your hair is a great way to clean up stained hands BTW), I saw all these little spots.  I figured out they are where the dye went deeper into my finger tips thanks to all the little puncture wounds from hand stitching.  Did I ever mention that I've never been able to get used to using a thimble?









Anyway, back to the fabric...here's what it looks like now, after the addition of the Procion H liquid dye.  Now this is something I can get excited about!



I'll be back Monday to show you all the threads that I've dyed over the last little while.  Until then, have a great weekend!

Too Much Snow?...Dye!

I've been meaning to try snow dying for a long time...but usually I think about it during the summer. LOL  We'll, last week someone in one of the Facebook groups I belong to mentioned it, reminding me that it was on my list of things to try, and as luck would have it we're up to our eyeballs in snow this winter.

I started by Googling 'snow dying', watched a couple of videos to find out what I needed to do, and then I got started.  While my muslin was soaking in the soda ash solution, I prepared a few skeins of crochet cotton and then added them to the soda ash solution too.

While that was soaking, I went outside with a big basin and filled in up with snow.

Bin 1

I set up three basins for the dying:

Bin 1. yellow, fushia, scarlet
Bin 2. yellow, turquoise, blue, green
Bin 3. yellow, blue, green, purple

These first images show the snow covered with the procion MX dye powder, most of which has quickly dissolved into the snow.

Bin 2

Bin 3

You're supposed to cover it and leave it for 24 hours, but you know I couldn't do that.  ;o)

...So here's what bin 1 and 2 looked like about 30 minutes later (don't know why I forgot bin 3):

Bin 1

Bin 2

And then a while later...you can see the little blue baskets I put in upside down, to raise the fabric and skeins up out to the melting snow/dye.

bin 3

bin 1

bin 2

Okay, this is scheduled to post at midnight and I'm off to bed.  I'll show you the reveal in Friday's post.  See you then...

Guess What I've Been Doing...

If you guessed 'playing with Procion MX dyes', you'd be right.  I'm thrilled with the wonderful range of colours I've now got to work with in my art quilts for the next while! I'm especially excited by how well the cheese cloth takes the dye, resulting in fabulously brilliant colours.  I also made a bunch of skeins of cotton threads which I also included in the dyeing process, so I'll have all of these wonderful hand-dyed threads to use to embellish my work with hand stitch.

There are so many ideas running through my imagination for what to do with these and the indigo pieces I dyed earlier in the summer...I'm off to sew!

Rainbow Dyeing...

I know you're waiting to see the results of my indigo dyeing...and I'm chomping at the bit, wanting to get to it, but I promised my friends I'd wait until they came up and do the indigo dyeing with them. But, I just had to get into some messy fun, so I did some dyeing with Procion MX dyeing this week instead.

It's the perfect time of year to do dyeing because I can work outside on the picnic table and I don't have to worry about getting dye stains all over.  I discovered that an old wallpaper tray was a great size and shape for the zip lock bags of fabric so they were all neatly contained while I waited for them to process for 24 hours.  I mixed the dye in old mason jars, but I wouldn't recommend them.  I need to get some plastic bottles like these!

Anyway, after I rinsed all the fabric I couldn't resist taking some pictures of it hanging on the line.

Notice that Casey is still her beautiful cream coloured self!

Even the ziploc bags get rinsed and hung on the line for the next time I dye fabric.

And here's my stash!  The fabrics under the stacks were made using the left over dye after I finished the measured rainbow dyeing.

a light gauzy cotton (usually used for men's turbans)

cheesecloth

recycled Egyptian cotton bed sheets

I can't wait to start creating with all of these fabulous colours!