Ice Dyeing

 A few days ago I had some more fun with ice dyeing. It was a beautiful fall day and I hadn't been out to my lovely studio barn in awhile. The shirt below had been dyed previously and also had some stencil painting done on it, but I was still not crazy about it. The colors came out so intense. I love it now! 

I try to swim three times a week at an outdoor pool to help with my back pain. It's been a little bit chilly lately getting in and especially out of the pool so I bought a white terry cloth robe to keep me warm.  You know me, I couldn't keep all that fabric just plain white! It was a little bit challenging working with this amount of thick, wet fabric. I'm very pleased with the end result. I feel like I'm wearing Joseph's multi-colored coat! It's lovely to wrap up in after getting out of the pool.

More Ice Dyeing

I needed to create some additional fabric tor the back of a sweatshirt jacket I'm sewing using my hand-dyed fabrics.  So I decided to do some ice-dyeing.

Above and below are photos showing the ice with the dye on top. The cardboard keeps the ice cubes on top of the fabric. Without it, they fall off. I've placed the fabric on an old metal rack which is on top of an old dish drying rack, so the fabric does not sit in the dye and melted water.

The fabric in the top half in the container below was scrunched and rubber banded here and there.

The fabric in the lower half was fan folded and clipped with clothespins

Below are the finished fabrics. The top two are created on large vintage linen napkins a friend gave me.  They have a beautiful floral pattern woven into the fabric.

This last one was done on mercerized cotton. I used Komasu shibori resist technique to create the patterns. If you want to know more about that technique, 

you can look under the labels on my blog for Komasu. 

Soy Wax Ice Dyeing Revisited

Had a great time over the weekend creating some soy-waxed, ice-dyed fabric.  It was the first time in ten months, I felt well enough physically to do it, since my back problems and back surgery. Believe it or not, there is a lot of bending, lifting, carrying, etc. involved in the process. Anyway, I had a ball!

This was a piece I over-dyed. Here it is after applying the soy wax.

Here's my table all set up, ready for Ice and Dyes, 

after doing some dye planning.

Here is the over-dyed piece, shown in the top photo. I used grape and black on it.

After soy waxing, I used Bronze, Lemon yellow and Powerberry dyes.

This was also an over-dyed piece. It was light pink in places and mostly white. 

 I batiked it and used Chartreuse, Turquoise, Palomino Gold and Powerberry.

This was another over-dyed piece. It was originally dull green with some rust. I batiked it and used Cobalt and Pro-chem Rust Brown.

I used a wooden, carved block made for batiking on this but the design did not come out at all. I think too much wax got into the recessed areas when I dipped it. I used Cayman Isle, Turquoise, Rust Brown and Grape dyes.  

After batiking this piece, I used Pomegranate, Turquoise, Grape and a little Emerald.

Ice Dyeing

Here are my Easter eggs made early on Easter morning, tie dyed of course.

This is an ice dyed cotton shirt I made this last weekend.

This is another one. I really like how its rock-like colors and textures.

Here is the whole shirt

On the left side is the striped golden fabric I started with

 and on the right side is it after ice dyeing.

Below is a Kona Gold fabric which I ice-dyed. It came out darker than I wanted. I might do some bleaching on this one to bring back the gold color in places, maybe through stenciling or something.

Great Dyeing Workshop by Dragonfly Dyeworks at SLO Creative Studios

I took a great class this weekend at the SLO Creative Studios http://www.slo-creative.com
We made a lot of great fabric in two days.  The class was taught by Nick and Chase from Dragonfly Dyeworks, http://www.dragonflydyeworks.com/   They are based in the Los Angeles area and give workshops here, there and everywhere.  If you get the opportunity to go to one, DO IT! They are both very knowledgeable about all aspects of surface design and fabrics.  Jan, the owner of SLO Creative Studio was our hostess.  We all learned a lot and had great fun doing so.

Below is a picture of Nick and Chase holding one of their lovely ice dyed fabrics.

Here are a few more of their fabulous fabrics that received lots of oohs and ahs from the class.

 

On the first day we did a soy wax resist with ice dyeing. Below is 

one of mine  with wax applied, that was already hand dyed, but needed a little something more.

 Below is a picture

 of Candace's fabric with soy on it.

 Cathy using a stencil with soy wax on her gold fabric.

Stay tuned for more on this great workshop including pictures of how it all turned out! Right now, it's back to lesson planning and gearing up for another week of teaching.

Revealing of New Ice Dyed Articles

Well, here's how Sunday's Ice Dyeing turned out. All the dyes are from Dharma with the exception of using a black from Pro-chem along with a Dharma black hoping to get a true  black.  I did get some true black on the orange shirt below but not the white one.  It's always a surprise with ice dyeing!

I used Cerulean, blue Violet and Raspberry for this one.

I used Pomegranite, Cerulean and Deep Orange.

This was a white shirt dyed with emerald, plum blossom and blue violet. I really like this one. 

 I made it intending to give it to a friend, but not so sure now.

This was an orange shirt dyed with green and black.

Believe it or not, this one was ice-dyed using only black and orange. Was quite the surprise.

Ice dyeing Again

Last day of a lovely week off. Have been somewhat under the weather with a cold and sore throat, but it's still been very relaxing.

Had some time today to do a little ice dyeing.  Here's my containers out in the sun. I did some folding and banding together of the shirts in the first two pictures, then applied ice and dye.  I left them outside in the sun for about an hour then drained off the excess melted dye and water. Next, I flipped them over like cloth pancakes and covered them with more ice and dye powder. Then I put them outside again. The bottom photo is of a container which has a fat quarter and a silk scarf being dyed ala parfait style.

Stay tuned for the big unveiling Monday or Tuesday.

Newest Ice Dyed T Shirt

We had incredible rain, thunderstorms and lightening Saturday night.  It sounded like the sky was cracking into pieces.  In Paso Robles we received almost three inches of much needed rain.  Unfortunately, some people had flooding of water and mud.  We didn't have electricity for awhile and no internet until late yesterday evening.

Here is a picture of my latest ice dyed shirt.  It is a j jill shirt which flairs out slightly.  It has a nice drape to it, but its shape looks a little odd in the picture.  I did a different kind of folding for this one that resulted in the mirror image design.

Above is a closeup.

Ice Dyeing with a Twist or Should I Say with a Turn

Did some ice dyeing again yesterday, but different than I've done previously.  I bundled and scrunched the  fabrics and shirt tying them with string and rubber bands, so they stayed together in a dinner plate like shape.  I placed them on a rack over a larger container, put ice on it and then sprinkled darker color dye powder on it.  Next I placed it outside for an hour or so until most of the ice had melted. Then I brought it back inside, flipped it upside down and placed ice over it followed by lighter color dye powder.

I really like the contrast in colors and textures.

The above piece is canvas.

The piece above is cotton.

This shirt looks much better when on a body.  

Ice Dyeing Fun

It was nice to have a three day weekend.  I'm renting a table at our next guild meeting and will be selling some of my hand dyed fabrics, shirts, and scarves.  Had lots to catch up on at school and home, but did find some time to do a few iced dye pieces. All of these and more will be for sale at the March 3rd meeting. I did four fat-quarter pieces parfait style, one stacked on another

These three half yard pieces were done parfait style also,  in another large plastic jug.  I really like the patterns.  Usually I find the bottom piece the most exciting, due to the colors from the upper pieces sifting down to the lower ones, but the one below was the top piece and it was my favorite.  I used Plum blossom, Chinese Red and Better Black on it.  These are the names of the Dharma dyes used.

And a shirt.

.

More Parfait Style Ice Dyeing

I admit it!  I'm addicted to ice dyeing.  It's easy, fun and you get such amazing, serendipitous results.  Here are some that I did during my spring break. The parfait dyeing is great because stacking one fabric on top of another, scrunching them up, the fabric gets some dye from the piece below and of course the dyes that are sprinkled directly on top of it, plus some that will sift down from ones that will be stacked on top.  I don't always remember where each fabric was stacked, even though I am trying to take better notes while dyeing.

The one below received some Peacock Blue, Pomegranate and Robin's Egg.  These names refer to procion dyes obtainable from Dharma Trading Company, http://www.dharmatrading.com, where I get most of my fabrics and dyes.

The fabric below was a new one for me.  It is called Radiance and one side of the fabric is silk and the other cotton.  It really took the dye well, as you can see.  Below is the silk side, which as beautiful shimmer to it. Couldn't resist checking it out.

Below is the cotton side in which the colors are more intense.

If you like these fabrics and want to get together a group of people and have an ice dyeing party at your house and you live in the Paso Robles area, contact me and we can set something up.  It takes about three hours, including set up and clean up to create a couple gallon jugs of fabrics.  I use fat quarters and sometimes half yards.  I've also done t-shirts and scarves.