Saturday, September 10, 2011

Ice Dyeing Results

OMG, they're beautiful! See? No need for exposing yourself to powder dyes for no reason...just use yesterday's recipe for dye concentrate and put it in sprayers and hair color bottles with tiny tops. Again, don't breathe in the spray either; use a mask. Here are the finished pieces:


The one above was the accordion folded one in yesterday's photos.



Above is a close-up of the previous photo.





What do you think? I don't see much difference between the powder application and the concentrate application, and the concentrate is so much safer for our lungs.

Hint:
In order to use this technique for large pieces like quilt backing fabric, it may be easier to use the low water idea of pouring soda ash solution over the fabric. You can let the soda ash solution sit for 15 minutes, fold your fabric as desired and then add ice and color. Here's the formula for the amount of soda ash solution to add to your piece: 1 yard of fabric gets 1 cup of soda ash solution (perhaps slightly more), so a large backing would be about 9 yards with 9 1/2 cups of soda ash solution.

If you have any questions, just ask.