A Little Bit About My Ice Dyeing Process

My ice dyeing process is really, really simple.  When I first heard about ice dyeing, I wasn't tempted and never read any articles or blogs about it.  I just built on the process I was  using with snow dyeing of which I had done a lot in the past.  Since I am not here in the north for much of the snow season anymore, I decided to try my own version of ice dyeing.

There are several components but all very easy.  

1. Set up your workspace -- this involves finding some cookie racks or anything else that water can pass through easily and is big enough to accommodate your fabric.  I found some that were about 11 x 18 inches at Target.  I then had to find plastic boxes of similar dimensions to rest the racks on top of.  By the time I ended, I had four of these racks set up -- one larger than the other three (18x24 maybe).  Buy some ice.  I prefer to buy the largest bag I can with the smallest cubes and don't use cubes from my fridge except in desperation when I run out and just need a little more.  Gather some of your MX dyes.  I used my very oldest dyes that had been hanging around for up to 15  years in some cases.  In my case these oldest dyes were mixed dyes (not pure colors which is what I work with almost exclusively these days).  Try to have at least one black and one dark brown.  I also lay wet newspapers around the tubs to catch errant dye particles.

2.  Prepare your fabric - Cut  your fabric into desired lengths after prewashing (I only do this with fabrics that are pfd but aren't marked as such like my sateens and Egyptian cottons).  For me, pre-washing insures that they will sop up the soda ash liquid really quickly.  I then fold them into the sizes I want if I am going to do a repeat.  If I don't want a repeat, I just toss into the soda ash solution (1/2 cup of soda ash to one gallon of water).  I generally make up a three gallon bucket of soda ash solution.  For the repeat fabric, I carefully lay them in the soda ash solution all folded.  I let them sit there for at least 10 minutes making sure the solution goes through all layers.  I then just wring out by hand -- I don't try to squeeze out every drop -- I want them wet. 

3. Scrunch your fabric -- wet fabric is very easy to manipulate and I just squish or scrunch it up with my hands on the rack.  I generally get two yards per rack and more on the larger rack.  I try to keep the scrunching very even and both ways -- horizontal and vertical as it makes the patterns more interesting.  I do this when doing low water immersion as well.  I want to give the dyes an equal opportunity to hit all the fabric fairly evenly.  

4.  Applying the ice (or snow) - I apply the ice only the thickness of one cube or in the case of snow about 1 1/2 inches all over very evenly.  I have found that the really frozen cubes from my freezer actually adhere to the fabric.  Those that don't, I move around as they are not touching fabric.  I try to cover the whole fabric and will put the larger cubes around the outside to kind of hold in the rest.  I do this for each container at the time I am going to apply the dye, not all at once like all the other processes.  I don't want the ice melting before I apply the dyes as all that will do is wash the soda ash out of the fabric.

5.  Applying the dyes - At this point I put on a mask as I will be working with dye powders instead of my usual liquids.  I think it is important (at least for the repeating patterns) to have a good variety of light and dark value hues (colors).  I found from experience for me it is essential to use a good dark color somewhere in the piece or the pattern won't stand out.  The ice dyeing itself will provide for some lights.  I also like to include both warm and cool colors in a piece if at all possible (I like contrast A LOT).  With my ice dyeing, they don't mix much so there is little "mud".  I then take a tablespoon or ideally a shaker and place the dyes all over the ice cubes making sure to cover it all.  This is a colossal waste of dyes but so what!!  I have had them far too long anyway!!  There is probably at least a tablespoon or two per yard of fabric.  I do like to "outline" in my repeat pieces by putting a dark color all around the outside of the piece.  I try not to put complementary colors right next to each other as well but put blending colors between them.

6.  Batching and washout - I then just leave it alone but will go look at it after about 4 hours.  By then most of the ice has melted and that which is left is clear.  At this point, I remove those clear ice cubes (all they will do at this point is wash out the dye and soda ash).  I then take a container and usually two yards at a time, keep it scrunched as it is and put it into the microwave (I have a very old one down in my dye area).  I use a styrofoam meat tray as a lid and set the microwave to 3-4 minutes/yard.  Mine doesn't even rotate, it is so old.  While that is "cooking", I fill  up a 3 gallon pail with cold water and another with warm water.  After the microwave has dinged, I make sure the fabric is nice and warm (blue dyes especially need a little warmth to bond with the fabric).  I then unfold and soak in the cold water.  I wring it out and then move it to warm water.  Once more I  rinse in another bucket with warm water and then the fabrics get put aside in an empty bucket.  As each bunch gets nuked and I finally have about 10-12 yards rinsed the three times, I take them upstairs and wash them   with a little Synthrapol in my washing machine using warm water for wash and rinse.  I take them out and make sure all the threads are unwound from the fabric and not bunching it (you know what I mean).  That gives me my first preview of what they might look like.  I then put them back in the washer and run through a hot wash cycle  with more Synthrapol-- turning it through so that it gets a full 30 minutes of hot water.  Then I dry.  If I am selling the fabric, I would put it through the hot cycle again and still warn people to wash it before using (they may have hotter water or different water than me).

That's it!!

I have found that yellow is the most difficult to work with as a powder and have on occasion actually made a very heavy liquid concentration but even that doesn't work well as yellows are one color that want a decent amount of water to dissolve fully.  Undissolved they just won't bond with the fabric.  Reds tend to "speckle" the most -- i.e., if a tiny speck of  powder hits the fabric without liquid it will just sit there and bond immediately causing a freckle.  The fun part of the mixed dyes is you never know what colors are going to appear on the fabric!!  Sometimes you get the mixed colors and sometimes you get the separate colors and sometimes both!

Note:  I did get the stones attached to the lapidary quilt using my dear husband's epoxy which seemed to work well -- hopefully they will stay on long enough for the show!

Lapidary Show Quilt

The autumn Lapidary show sent out a request for some different kinds of exhibits for this  year's show.  One of our RAFA members was given some minerals to  use in our pieces.  The only requirement was that it not be jewelry!  I was intrigued by this piece which is about an 1/8th of an inch thick.  It inspired me to construct another Strata quilt as that is what it looked like to me -- a piece cut our of a strata.  I was going to mount the piece on the front on a piece of marbled fabric that looked like stones.  Par for the course, I took this picture and then managed to lose the stone although it will show up sometime well after the show is over I am sure.  Luckily I had a box full of polished stones, some of which were the green color in this specimen.  It won't be the same but....  I will mount a picture of the inspiration on the back of the quilt!  This is a shot with no flash so the color isn't as true as the piece below.  The colors are the same.

This is the almost finished piece (missing the stones which I have yet to fully figure out how to mount).  It ended up being about 33 inches x 24 inches and is fairly heavily quilted.  You may have to double click to see closer.

So now I just have to put on the sleeve and the stones and the label!

I am also getting several quilts ready for an exhibition in Clifton Springs at their Art Center later this fall.

 It has been darn difficult to get a picture of the hummingbirds which are frequent visitors.  This was about 50 feet away so not too bad.  They love the butterfly bush and chase each other off and move much too fast!!

This is a picture my next door neighbor took of three Pileated Woodpeckers going for the suet he placed on the tree.  He sees them quite frequently.

The same afternoon I saw the hummingbird, I spotted one of the above woodpeckers in a tree over my driveway -- he stayed just long enough to get a picture -- they never get very close!

The Very Last Ice Dyeing of 2013....

Well, there was half a bag of ice left in the freezer and despite having to get ready to head south, I couldn't help myself and did my last bunch of ice dyeing!  This time I switched back to 2 yard pieces of sateen -- yes, I have really been delving into the long hoarded sateen as I thought these experiments deserved the best!!  I am out of a lot of colors of dyes by this point (yay) so dipped into some that I hadn't used before like the Basic Blue (the only red/blue pure dye), some quite old Boysenberry which I never thought was strong enough and Lemon Yellow which I dislike usually so I mixed it with the Sun Yellow which is my favorite -- these are both pure dyes..  It certainly did the job in these high concentrations!!  I had an interesting experience with this and another piece.  I was in such a hurry to apply the dyes that I did so on part of the piece BEFORE I added the ice.  I just covered it with ice.  Since it was the Basic Blue which takes its time to bond, it worked out just fine.  Red wouldn't have and would have resulted in speckles.

This was the piece I was most dissatisfied with as it had just too much white in it.  I thought the rest was interesting enough that it made up for it!  I tried in this piece to mix up the warm and cool colors so that there was a bit of a look of a flower garden.  I didn't have any green left so used some  yellow with the blues.

I am not sure what was in this one except for there was red (strongest red which is a mix) and a mix of lemon and sun yellow as well as strong orange.  I don't know whether I added any brown or blue to this -- have no idea!!  This one I actually think looks even better in person.

Again, this was the same mix as the piece above.  I should note that these were all 8 repeats -- accordion folded three times (resulting in four layers) and then folded in half. The resulting piece is then the size of a fat quarter (22x18) before it is scrunched to about 1/4 that size.

This piece was the exception and was quite a bit wider than the 2 yards.  I folded it resulting in 8 repeats across the fabric and didn't fold it in half.  

I should note that this time I put some fabric underneath the fabric with the ice and let the dyes drip down on it (I had pretreated it with soda ash as well).  I did not like the results although there were some interesting patterns but lost with the speckles caused by bits of dye that went down with no water.  I have become obsessed with pattern, I am afraid!!

I want to thank two of my readers who were disturbed that I reported that Marshall Dry Goods no longer had pfd cotton.  They called and found that they do still carry it.  They had just forgotten to add it back to their website after they were out of it for awhile.  I have no idea what the current cost is but the last batch I got was a really good quality and cheaper than anyone else.  

Unfolding the Eight Repeats - More Shiborice

I just finished ironing the latest of my experiments which was an 8-repeat.  It was fan folded across the width and then folded in half repeating the pattern to the left 8 times.  So you will see how it unfolded in the following photos.  I can definitely see my scrunching pattern here as well.  This was how the fabric was folded and I scrunched almost creating ridges from top to bottom and very little side to side.  Normally when scrunching the fabric, I would do both ways but the fabric is pretty narrow by this point (about 11 inches wide by 18 inches long).  I had several of these "packets" lined up on the racks so applying the dye was a bit random as I didn't know where one ended and the next began.  I did try to concentrated on the edges with the darkest dye.  There is a mix of all sorts of colors in here.  Thank goodness I am starting to run out of those very old dyes!  The fabric is print cloth from the last order ever from Marshall Dry Goods which no longer sells the pfd fabric.  Luckily I bought 200 yards the last time I ordered!  I still have some of that left as well as some 108 wide print cloth from them.  They were the cheapest source I ever found!

This is unfolded once which basically gives you one of the four fat quarters that make up the design.

Here is half the piece.

This is the whole piece of fabric which is 45 x 36 inches.  I think the eight repeat is the best so far from a repeating and depth of shade standpoint.

This is the same piece only I just showed a chunk out of the middle in this photo.

I did thirteen yards this time around.  I won't show you all of them but I was quite happy with them although I still have some experimenting to do.  The following pictures will first show  the 1/8 of a yard piece showing the repeat pattern and then the whole piece

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A Little Time Off for Some Nature

I finally spotted an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail the other day but he was pretty bedraggled as was one of the other butterflies I spotted.

This was a Black Swallowtail who was also a bit torn up but looks good in this pose.

Last but certainly not least, a lovely Monarch graced the butterfly bush in this beautiful weather we have been having!

I know there is a butterfly quilt in my future.

Our begonias have been stunning this year, just covered with blossonms.  This is one of my favorities -- the yellow begonias right after a little rain.

We visited friends out in the country and they have a very active bird feeder in their yard.  Unfortunately, there are not as many birds this time of year.  May or June are much better months when the feeders are covered with Red Breasted Grosbeaks and Baltimore Orioles.  I did like t his pair of Mourning Doves sitting on the feeder which was a bit unusual.

Of course there is always a Hairy Woodpecker or two there.

A Goldfinch has just grabbed one of the sunflower seeds.

I believe this is a White Breasted Nuthatch.  There were also House Finches and Juncos.

This should be an easy one to identify but I am not sure.  It looks like it might be a female Red Breasted Grosbeak as it was a fairly good sized bird.  It was much prettier than the other females I have seen it that is what it was.

Last but not least, is our friend Nola with one of her two miniature horses.  He is just three  years old and is turning blonde.  Nola is only about 5 feet tall so you can see how small this horse is. The other one is bigger and not quite as friendly!

I couldn't help myself and bought some more ice yesterday while grocery shopping.  This ice is much smaller and I think it will be great for ice dyeing and Shiborice (as a reader suggested)!  I am going to try 8 thicknesses this time and may actually try some other variations at some point.  I don't have much time before heading to North Carolina and a visit from youngest daughter and her family.

Patricia's August Quilt Show - My Favorites

Very reminiscent of the Dear Jane quilts I made a few years back, this is called Sylvia's Bridal Quilt and is by Nick Williams.  Evidently the pattern is from one of Jennifer Chiavarini's books.  Just lovely!!

All in all, it was a very nice show.  There were not many quilts from GVQC, probably because our show was so recently and people didn't want to show the same quilts again and haven't had time to make new ones!

This was by Lynda Macdonald and was just beautiful.  A closeup follows.

This was Fireworks by Glenda Prin.

This was by Allison Lovallo from a pattern in an old Quiltmaker magazine.

This was called Remembering Jennifer by Donna German in honor of her daughter.

I loved this one by Kate Chace called Circle of Life.  She used hundreds of different fabrics, mostly batiks.

 This was called Jungle Walk by Nancy Trimmer.

This was called Winter in the Garden by Louise Mayer.

This was called Winter Solstice by our very talented machine quilter Val Schultz.  She has become addicted to ice and snow dyeing as well and this is one of the pieces she created.  There is wonderful machine quilting on this wholecloth quilt but probably not very visible in this photo.

Ice Dyeing Through 16 Layers -Shicebori Maybe?

 I pushed the envelope with this group with some more successful than others.  My challenge was to see how many layers of fabric the dye would flow through and give some semblance of the same pattern.  I did two different foldings of fabric to test this.  Fold 1 was folding one yard in quarters accordion style across the width of the fabric and then in quarters again across the lengths, again accordion style not just folds.  Fold 2 was folding in eighths across the width again accordion style and then just folding it in half across the length.  Both give you 16 layers.  I used pfd print cloth for all but one which was Egyptian cotton.  I figured the weave of the fabric (the Egyptian cotton is higher thread count) would affect it which it didn't seem to do. 

This was probably my favorite of the bunch.  I utilized Black 604, Intense Blue and a little Blue/Violet.  This was a Fold 1 variation.  I tried to put the black along the edges which doesn't show up as much on this one as some others.

This had a lot of black in it and is nicer looking in person  It looks to me like 8 is about the maximum thicknesses where you get the same patterns.  If I cut this at the half yard mark, I would have two different looking pieces.  Of course, they will make awesome fat quarters!!

Another black, blue and purple that seemed to photograph better.

This was my favorite as it looked like there were circles and a center point.  You can see most clearly here the folds that resulted in 16 thicknesses.  Again, I put the black around the edge.  I didn't scrunch these very much if any either.

Another one that didn't photo well -- a lot of black but quite nice in person.

This was one of the ones that was folded in eighths and then in half (Fold 2).  Again, looks like I could cut down the middle and  have two different patterns.

Another of the folds across but instead of folding in half, I just sxcrunched it up tighter.  I like parts of this one more than other parts.  I have found that I like to restrict my colors rather than using the whole rainbow on one piece which I did with a couple here.

This was a Fold 2 example.  I liked the top half but too many colors as I think I  used them all but tried not to put complementary colors next to each other.  I might not have used quite enough dye as well for these colors that didn't go through the 16 layers as effectively.  

If I decide to get some more ice next week, I may try some with just 8 layers to see how that goes.  This is terribly addictive!!  I may have to give this a new name as new ideas keep coming!!  So "shicebori" it is for now.....