Ice Dye Results

The ice dyeing from yesterday, turned out very interesting. The blue/turquoise/black did not hold it's color very well in the washing. I don't know if this is because the dye was old, or it just looked so much darker wet, so that I did not use enough powder. The red/raspberry/orange came out very vibrant and colorful, with the blue added the purple was very bright. The only problem I had was with the golden yellow, it caked and clumped up and did not want to dissolve. I mixed it around a bit with a rock and it did bleed in and dyed very intense, but did not spread very far. So judge for yourself the colors and patterns. The pictures of the fabric are pretty good representations.

Some were fat quarters, some were half yards, I went to the larger pieces cause it was hard to pile the ice on the smaller ones. But it did not make any difference, once it was folded and scrunched up, they were both small piles of fabric. I've seen in the magazines and blogs, that some people put the ice in a large jar or bucket, this ends up all melting together and sitting in the dye, like a "parfait dye" process. I think on the wire shelves, it made the dye and ice seep through the fabric, and the muslin wasn't sitting in a puddle. I have two wire baskets, I'm going to try also.

The results look very similar to tie dyeing also. I folded into triangles a few pieces, accordion folded some and scrunched up others. I like the patterning, and will try mixing more colors next time. Using the dry dye powder was simpler than having to mix up all the jars of solution, but I think it used a lot of powder. I dyed 4 yards of fabric, but I think the dye would have done more fabric if made into concentrates, and immersion dyed. I feel it was a good use of old dyes, but if I just spent a lot of money on dye, it might be a waste. I hope you enjoy following the process with me. I get to do it all over again tomorrow at our two day dye workshop, but we are doing silk scarves. I think the colors will come out scrumptious!