We finally got some snow last week, so I jumped on starting
some snow dyeing. It is a simpler
process than other dye methods. I first
learned of the technique from a fellow member of Contemporary Quilt and Fiber
Artists. One could also use ice cubes for
this dye method but snow is plentiful in Ohio and free! A helpful article on the process is “Dye Your
Own Iced Parfait” by Carol Ludington, Quilting Arts, June/July 2011.
I made up three main color blends this time; my “Painted
Desert” blend, a red-violet/yellow-orange shade/green blend and a brown/yellow
shade/green/red-orange blend. I have
made up two variants of each basic blend.
As the snow melts down into the layers of fabric, I can see some areas
where the dyes are blending with each other, and other places where the dyes
are separating into other colors. I’ve
had a lot of purples separate into blues and red-violets in this slow
process. Not that it is a bad thing, the
varied separation and blending creates some wonderful, unexpected
surprises. Here’s a view of the snow and
dyed covered fabric. Yes, there really
is fabric in there.
Back in college, I had the opportunity to work with raku
fired ceramics, something I miss doing and would like to do again. The snow or ice dyeing process is very
similar to certain concepts that I loved with raku: lack of direct control of
results, seemingly random results, extreme temperatures, and a lot of
unsuccessful pieces. Well, the high rate
of loss wasn’t really something I loved so much, but it was a strong lesson in
dealing with mistakes and loss, things to carry though in all aspects of
life. The iridescent colors or crackling
in the raku glazes depended on how quickly the pieces made it into the sawdust
reduction, whether or not any combustible material touched the glaze, and how
long the red-hot pieces were allowed to smoke and slowly cool. The shock of being pulled out of a red hot
kiln causes many pieces to break. With
snow dyeing, I often get a moderate amount of fabric that doesn’t get dye
distributed nicely. There are often
large areas of still white fabric. The
nice thing about fabric, I can always re-dye it again, and fabric doesn’t crack
or break. Unlike the heat of raku
firing, snow dyeing obviously goes to the other extreme. I have been running out in single digit
temperatures to gather snow to top my buckets of fabric. Once in a while, the color blends just don’t
work out, and then, there isn’t much to do to save it.
The buckets get set aside for about 24 hours, until the snow
melts. These look promising:
Then comes rinsing out, and washing with Synthrapol. I can get a fairly good feel for how the
fabric is turning out as I rinse, but it still transforms to a certain degree
while it goes through a wash cycle or two, then drying. This batch looks like a success:
Do I have to sell these?
I want to use them myself!
