More Snow dyeing

Well I decided to try snow dyeing one more time only this time I did it a bit different. Instead of squirting dye all over the snow outside what I did was take a one metre length of fabric (that had been soaked in soda ash and wrung out) and put it in a plastic bin and scrunch the fabric up in the bin.

Scrunched fabric in plastic bin.

I then took the bin/fabric outside to the deck and put handfuls of snow on top of the material until it was covered.

Snow covered fabric in bin.

I then took the bin into the laundry room and began to squirt dye over the snow in what I hoped was a pleasing pattern. The dyes I used where cerulean blue, grecian rose, ivory and avocado.

Cerulean blue, grecian rose, ivory and avocado.

I tilted the container slightly so that the melted snow and dye wouldn’t pool under the fabric and as the snow melted I used a syringe to siphon off the liquid. This method had the snow melting at a quicker rate than last time when the fabric and snow was in a massive lump.

Snow melting, fabric propped up with some extra containers so it wouldn’t slide down into excess dye.

Dye pooled at bottom with syringe on the left for draining it.

Material with all the snow removed.

At one point most of the dye had drained down through the snow so I just removed the excess snow as it didn’t seem it would have any effect on the fabric. I took the fabric and nuked it for three minutes as I’m too impatient to wait for the material to batch. I then washed it out.

Finished fabric, reminds me of a Monet garden.

I decided to take the remaining dye and create a couple of parfaits the way I normally do them – in a vase. I take a piece of fabric and squirt some dye into the bottom of the vase; I then tamp down a corner of the fabric, I then squirt more dye onto this fabric, tamp it down, squirt dye, tamp down fabric…etc, etc. I then put a cup of water + soda ash on top of the tamped down fabric and let it batch for a couple of hours before wash out.

The first piece I did I forgot to wet it with water first so when I applied the dye the fabric sucked it right in. I was afraid that all I would end up with was blobs of fabric but it still seemed to have a bit of creep along the folds after I added the soda water.

Cerulean blue, grecian rose, ivory, avocado parfait – medium intensity.

I then took the remaining dye and added water to twice the volume to have a lighter batch of dyes and then did another parfait.

Cerulean blue, grecian rose, ivory, avocado parfait – light intensity.

The difference between the regular parfaits and the snow dyed parfait is in the edges. The snow dyed piece on the whole has a softer blending of the edges whereas the other parfaits the colours creeps along the folds so I guess it just depends on what effect you’re after as to which method you want to use.

I’m thinking it would be cool to freeze dye as ice cubes and then smash then into little pieces and sprinkle these pieces onto a piece of flat fabric. I’m wondering if the effect would be similar to salt crystals but maybe not.

Karen