Ice Dyeing Play Day

Our Fyber Cafe group had a play day at my house to do ice dyeing. We were sweating it, the 3 previous days had been 100' but we got very lucky and it cooled down on Wednesday, to 70 for us, just perfect. We set up on wire racks with plastic & wire baskets for the fabric, layered on ice, and then sprinkled dry dye powder over the ice. We used all the baskets and wire racks that I had put out. The big yardage is Clare's, she spiraled each end of her yardage, with blue and purple dyes. Lorraine used a twist from the corner to pattern her fabric with indigo dye.

At the end of the day we were running out of baskets, so I pinned my last pieces of fabric on the clothes line. Using leftover liquid dye concentrates from a previous dye day, I dripped it on the fabrics. I had a lot of black that we did not use, and a limited color palette, no red or yellows.

I ordered silk charmuese scarves if people wanted to dye them, there were a few leftover, so I dyed them, I think I will use them as gifts when I go to the family reunion this summer.

I have been wanting some brown fabric for different applique projects and was having trouble mixing a nice one from turquoise/fuchsia/yellow primary colors. So I ordered Terra Cotta, Dutch chocolate and bronze from Dharma. Bronze is one of our favorite colors, but we really have no idea what color it really is, because it always splits into it's different parts, but it goes with just about any color we mix.

I believe that these are Electric blue & indigo, and Chinese red & fuchsia, with maybe a little terra cotta too, they have not been ironed yet, I just wanted to get something to post on Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday check her blog to see what other talented textile artists are doing this week.

Dyeing Revealed

The dyeing project from last weekend is finished, with a wash in Synthrapol and dried and ironed. See last weeks post on the dyeing process. The first piece was ice dyed, wonderful colors and texture, the fabric is folded in half for the picture, so it is a larger yard and a half of fabric. The second piece is the one that was scrunched up on the wire rack. Rainbow color spots and lots of blending. This is a 2 yard piece.

The second piece of ice dyed fabric, shows the "Flower bloom" of the pattern as the fabric was pushed through the grid of the plastic basket. Crimson red, burgundy and purple dyes were added to the turquoise, navy, royal blue combo that was used in the first one.

Here are the results of the tub dyed "Parfait" layers. A different color dye was poured on top as each layer of fabric was put in the tub. The effect and cross color mixing was the result of scrunching the fabric and adding dye on top of dye.

Each of these pieces is a 1/3 yard strip, folded up to take the picture, there is a lot of patterning as the length unfolds. I still have some dyes left over, and got 8 more yards of white fabric at Joann Fabrics sale yesterday, as long as the weather holds nice and warm, I'll do a little bit more.

I am linking this up with Nina-Marie's "off the Wall Friday" click on the badge in the right hand column to see what other Very talented textile artists are doing.

Dyeing Hot

Since yesterday was 100 degrees out, and Saturday was going to be 95', I got an early start to my dyeing project. I had a bunch of liquid dyes leftover from the Fyber Cafe Dyeing workshop that I wanted to use up. My friend Peggy could not make it over, but I had already set up and had 3 yards of raw silk noil soaking in soda ash. It was in two 1 1/2 yard pieces, a soft beige color and a very nubby texture. I wanted to ice dye these pieces. Two plastic baskets from the dollar store with large open grids, were perfect to tuck the fabric into. Pushing the fabric into the grid gives a pucker where the dye drips down, creating a flower burst of colored texture. I used turquoise, navy, royal blue and black on both pieces, sprinkling the dry dye powder over the piled on ice. One piece I added bright green and just a little burgundy. The second basket I added burgundy, violet and some crimson sunset, all Procion MX dyes from Dharma. I clipped plastic bags over them to sit in the heat and batch.

My next project was to dye 5 yards of "Sew Essentials" white cotton from JoAnn's Fabrics. Cutting them into strips about 13" wide, would give me a 12 1/2" background block for applique, instead of just long quarter yards. Each large butter tub has scrunched up, soda soaked fabric. I put about a 1/8 cup of a dye we mixed for the workshop, I am not sure of the dye percentage to water, I think she said 12% for her wool dyeing. The 1/8 cup was not quiet enough to soak all the way through the fabric, and I added about a 1/4 cup of soda ash solution to it.

When I usually use this method of "Parfait" dyeing, I forget what three colors I used in each layer, so this time I took pictures of each step. First one layer of fabric and dye, then another scrunched fabric layer with dye, then a third layer. One tub had purple, fuchsia, and magenta, the next turquoise, royal blue and navy. The last tub had golden yellow, black, and scarlet. Two more tubs were set up, lemon yellow, magenta and purple, then green, turquoise and navy.

I covered each tub with a gallon zip lock bag to sit and batch over night,

Last was the remaining 2 yards of silk noil, after a soda ash soak, I bunched it up on my big wire rack, giving it a good scrunch.

I began to drip dye from the squeeze bottles onto the fabric, using ALL the colors I had.

More colors, more dye, I did not want any of the plain silk color to show. Because it was damp from the soda ash soak, the colors did run together and soak through.

But the dye did not soak thru enough, so I flipped it over and added more dye. Then a lesson I learned a long time ago, when using all the colors, was I did not like the pure rainbow colors blending to mud brown between the bright colors. So I picked it all up and gave it a good twist and scrunch to mix up the colors more. So there were fewer pure colors and more blending.

The finished bundle of silk, you can see it is not as bright as when I first started dripping on the colors. The day did get HOT, MX dyes only need to reach 70 degrees to heat set, and covered in plastic they were not in direct sun. I left them over night to batch set.

In the morning I brought them all in and rinsed out the excess dye that did not bond with the fibers. My 5 gallon bucket with the rinsed fabrics, the silk was quiet heavy and bulky. I put them all in the washing machine with some laundry soap and a couple of cap fulls of Synthrapol. Next the drier and the reveal.

I am linking this to Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click on the badge in the right hand column to see what other talented textile artist are doing.

Ice Dye T-Shirts

On Sunday morning a friend came over with her granddaughter for some ice dyeing. They brought an 8 pack of T-shirts. First we soaked them in soda ash, then tucked the shirts into plastic "berry" baskets. The baskets have holes in the bottom, so the ice can melt thru, and we poked a bit of cloth into each hole, to help get an awesome pattern.

After the baskets were filled with ice, we scooped dry dye with a Popsicle stick and sprinkled it over the ice. We kept going back to the turquoise and fuchsia combo, but the 2nd shirt was burgundy and black.

We had saved back 2 shirts, and hung them on a line, after soda ash soak. Using left over liquid dyes we dripped dye on the shirts, as the colors seeped down they blended, and made streaks. We could not find a fabric content on the hats, since they were Dollar Store items, we had dribbled really nice patterns and dropped dots on the brim, but everything blended too well, and not much pattern. Since they did NOT take the dye very well, we did not rinse them. After, batching for a few hours, they came back, and we bagged everything, and popped them in the microwave for 60 seconds, to heat set. They should have batched overnight, but since we were in a hurry, we microwaved. Rinsed well to remove excess dye, then washed and dried them in the washing machine with Synthrapol. She will have some great shirts for back to school. And had a great bonding day with grandma!

Ice Dyeing Adventure

Since Spring has turned to Summer, I have been waiting for a chance to do some Ice Dyeing, but we had an unusually cool June, so I finally got my chance. The temps were supposed to be in the 90's, so I got up early to get things set up. I had prepared some fabric with Shibori stitching, to make a snowflake design, I had seen some on a blog a while ago. I folded the fabric first, and took 1/4" stitches thru all the layers, and pulled it tight and knotted the thread. I also had some 1/3 yard pieces of white fabric and two T-shirts. I soaked all the fabric in soda ash, from an old gallon jug that I had. Mistake #1. After all the work, the color came out in the wash, even with Synthrapol. So I learned the hard way, to use fresh soda ash, even tho some of the books say it can be stored and saved. When I undid the stitching, there was no white line, the dye had worked it's way into all the fabric. There was some design from the folding, but I over dyed every thing, so no stitch lines any more.

So the next day I got to play again! I have small "berry baskets" from the dollar store. They are different from a lot of the plastics, in that they have holes in the bottom for the dye to drain. They are great to hold your fabric and a pile of ice. Then they are placed on metal shelf racks, to drain on the ground. Don't do this on cement or a patio, the dye needs to runs through or you end up with muddy colors. I tried using just the shelf racks only, but it was hard to pile up the ice and keep it in place. The berry baskets can even be clipped to a clothes line to drip. After piling on the ice, I used a Popsicle stick to scoop up dry dye powder and sprinkle it on top of the ice. You need about a 1/4 to 1/2 tsp of dye powder for each T-shirt or half yard of fabric. I use several colors on each piece, so use your judgment as to the amount of dye powder. Everything was covered in plastic and left to "batch," it sits for 24 hours, to set the dye, and it needs to get over 70', that's why I waited for a hot day.
The next morning I rinsed each piece of fabric until the water ran almost clear, then put it all in the washing machine with a capful of "Synthrapol." I can't wait to see the results, after the fabric comes out of the drier. The drier heat sets the colors, so no need to iron the fabric to heat set.

Three squares of fabric, the two with concentric patterns were folded and put on the rack, under the t-shirt to catch drips, the other was just scrunched up in a basket.

I used Procion MX dyes, the first has fuchsia, red, deep purple, maybe some blue. The second has red, orange, golden yellow and bronze. I ripped about 12" strips off of a bolt of good quality white cotton.

Bright green, bronze, black and a little turquoise. Then fuchsia, red, deep purple and violet purple.

The 3 squares of folded and stitched fabric, were dyed with turquoise, medium blue, navy blue and black. Since they were over dyed, after I pulled out the stitching, no pattern is apparent, but I like the stormy sky effect that I got.

Another drip piece of fabric placed under the upper rack to catch the dye that drips down. And me in my T-shirt, I love the way it came out. I wish I had more green like the sleeve has. Most of the blue mixed with the reds to make purple, and the yellow made orange, instead of being clear areas of color. I used all my dyes, in small bits, to make this multicolor extravaganza.

The first t-shirt had some embroidery around the collar which did not dye, because it was polyester thread. I really like how the design shows up, you could not see it white on white. The 2nd T was scrunched in a tray, and I put jet black, then navy blue, and working my way up I added medium blue and turquoise. Then I added a little bit of violet purple on the top area. I really like how this turned out darker at the bottom, with the color at the top, I did this "on purpose" ha ha ha. Things don't often happen as I plan them. I had a great time, even tho I had to do it twice. I have two T-shirts left and another 2 yards of white fabric begging to have color on them. And it's going to get HOT again!

I am linking this to Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click on the badge in the right hand column to see what other wonderful textile artists are doing this week.