Thursday 9 August 2012

Ice dyeing

I love dyeing fabric and saw an article on Ice Dyeing in June/July 2012 issue of Quilting Arts and thought I'd have a go. My stocks of dyes have run right down so I only had a couple of reds and blues to play with so the resulting fabrics are all a bit "samey" but it was so easy to do that I will have another go with some brighter colours soon.

First I soaked my cotton fabric in soda ash for half an hour

Then I wrung the pieces of fabric out and lightly scrunched one up in the bottom of my dye pot. I then added a handful if ice cubes and sprinkled a small amount of dye powder on top of the ice cubes. I kept layering up the fabric, ice cubes and dye putting just red dyes on some layers and blue or a mix on the others.

I then covered the pot and left it overnight for the ice cubes to melt and carry the dye through the layers. Is a bit like magic and is exciting when you start rinsing through the layers the next day to see what patterns you are getting.

This is the dye pot when I have taken a few layers of fabric out. The fabric was well rinsed and then given a hand wash in warm soapy water before being pegged out to dry. I now have a lovely pile of coordinating pieces of fabric - I just need to think what I can make with them now!!

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