MORE SNOW DYEING

I had so much fun and was so pleased with my first efforts that I decided to do a little more. This time I chose 1/2 yard pieces of PFD muslin which I first washed, then soaked in the soda ash solution before placing in the flower pots. I added snow as before but changed the application method for the dyes, using the curved end of straws to pick up the dyes with a finger over the other end to hold it in place until I got into the position I wanted to release the dye to. This made for a somewhat more controlled application.
















When I placed the fabrics in the pots I also included a piece of soda ash soaked cheesecloth with three of the fabrics, the cheesecloth sort of nestled in the middle. This is the one without cheesecloth:



These are the ones with cheesecloth:







































More snow is prophesied for this week -- maybe I'll do some more!

SNOWDYEING

I've really been neglecting this blog for some time but current discussion on Quilt Art about snowdyeing stirred me to action -- once we got snow! Vermont snow has been a bit sparse in my area this year. Early this week we got a nice 6" so I set about using some of it to dye with. The dyes were no problem and I mixed them in some plastic cups:

but the physical part of the dying took a little thinking -- and serendipity! While rummaging in my storage room some plastic flower pots caught my eye and produced a Eureka! moment. The problem of what I could set them on so that the melted snow would not stay with the fabrics was solved with some clean cat food cans that were awaiting recycling.











Some scraps of white muslin were soaked in a soda ash/salt solution, the liquid squeezed out by hand and crumpled into the flower pots then set outside to (hopefully) freeze overnight.
The next day these were topped with snow and dyes added.











They were left overnight and rinsed and washed the next day;






















After washing and ironing I had these pieces:

















































With the dye and snow 'drippings' I dyed these scraps without presoaking in the soda ash solution:


















And when I contemplated the used cand emptied cans I thought they also made an interesting photo:

















It was all so much fun that I did a second batch before the snow melted -- but those pieces will be on the next blog!