Ice Resist Dyeing Mandalas

If you have followed my blog, you will remember that the last couple of summers I have felt compelled to experiment with folding fabrics, applying ice and then dyes trying to see how many layers the color will go through to get a repeating pattern.  Inspired by fellow dyer Kay Koeper Sorensen, I decided to try to do mandalas this summer.  These were my first attempts and this was my favorite of the three I did.  My process for this one was (1) to cut a piece of fabric 45 inches long by 45 inches wide. ( 2) I then ironed it well and started folding, first in half, then quarters, then eighths and then sixteenths, ironing in the folds. (3) I then refolded as much as I could so that I was getting more of a fan fold rather than just one thick side. (4)  I then soaked it in a soda ash solution making sure that the piece was saturated and making sure the folds stayed in place. (5)  Then I placed it on a rack and smushed it up some as I was running out of room because I had laid out another piece flat.  The folds in this piece were not as precise as the other two I did at the same time.  This was my favorite. (6) I used grape, blue violet, dark green and basic blue dyes pretty thickly applied over the ice with which I had covered the pieces.

 This is the other piece that shared the rack with the above piece.  Instead of scrunching this piece, I aid it flat on the rack.  If you look closely you can see that on top of the piece, you can clearly see the rack markings!  The third piece I did had this even more evident.  My conclusion was that I liked the effect of the crinkled up fabric much better.  With the scrunching, you get hills and valleys so that the dyes actually run down the fabric and give a much more organic feel to it.  So onward with more experimenting using different colors, concentrations and using a hexagon fold the next time so that I will have a six-repeat pattern instead of an 8.  I love kalaidoscopic images and of course have carried on a love affair with hexagonal repeats for a number of years now doing far far too many stack and whack, one block wonder and serendipity quilts!!  

This is far too much fun!!