An Ice Dyeing Day!

Next weekend is our Azalea Festival down here in NC.  Dianne's azaleas were just gorgeous yesterday as a backdrop for our ice dyeing.  We couldn't have had more perfect weather!!

This is the way I normally do ice dyeing.  I layer some fabric down on top of a random piece of fabric (to prevent the grate marks on the mandalas) and then put another random piece on top of the mandalas, cover it all with  a layer of ice and then sprinkle dye on top  of that.

I had seen an alternative technique on Facebook on a page called The Process of Ice Dyeing.  Most people on this site apply the dye (and sometimes even the soda ash) on top of the fabric and then put dye on top of that and then finish it off with adding all the ice on top.  I was leary of this as I don't like the speckles  you get when you apply dye directly onto fabric.  I think this technique might work better as many of their techniques are like the one I use for t-shirts, i.e.roll them up into a tight bundle kind of on edge so the flat fabric isn't really exposed much.

It was a 70 degree day and the ice all melted in about 3 hours which allowed us to take our fabrics home to sit overnight.

This and the next three are my random drop cloths.  These were some 200 thread count muslin I got from Joanns years ago.

This and the next two were the 22 inch square mandalas.  This first one used the "new" technique and there is some speckling which you can't really see in the picture. 

This and the next ones are the smaller 11 inch square pieces.

These were the small pieces that were made using the new technique.  You can definitely see the speckes on the bottom right on the bottom right side.

Finally finished this black and white quilt with small yellow, medium red and black border.  It was a little tricky as the outsides of the squares are all on the bias so carefully measuring and calculating the length and width of the quilt was very important.

Just a quick view into my daughter's backyard to the pond she abuts.  It was a beautiful day to sit outside and watch the birds!