2014 Snow Dying Part Two

So when we got our big Snowstorm of 2014 down here in North Carolina I along with some other Fabric Dyeing friends tried our hand at dyeing fabric with Procion Dyes and Snow. Normally the dyes need fairly warm temperature (70 - 80 degrees) to work properly. The use of snow slows down the molecular bonding of the dye with the fiber and that gives some really interesting visual effects.
I used three different methods of applying the dye and snow to the fabric. In the previous post, I showed two of those methods, the use of a tray and tall containers for parfait style dyeing.  Those two methods were sort of after thoughts. The original method was to put the fabric directly on the snow that had already fallen on my husbands trailer (to catch the run off). This proved to not be the best method as the snow was still falling and it was freezing outside! My hands only had plastic disposable gloves so my hands were numb when I got back inside. The other major problem was that the fabric was white, the snow was falling quickly and I lost track of exactly where the fabric was. That meant throwing dye powder on the snow, but not being sure where the fabric was and what colors would go on which fabrics.  The next time I try this, I will definitely use old window screens and put them over containers to catch the run off. I'll also put down a second piece of fabric in the container to let the run off dye react with that fabric too. (Fellow dyer and blogger Kay Sorenson came up with that idea!)  Anyway, here are the results. There were lots of pieces, so just scroll through quickly.  I purposely tore smaller size pieces so that I would not have to cut them to use them.
                                            
                                         1. 18" x 10"

 

                                          2. 18" x 20"

                                             3. 21" x 20"

                                           4. 18" x 10"

                                          5. 18"x 10" (There are actually two of these, two pieces of fabric got stuck
                together, so there are two almost identical pieces. I don't love this much  orange, so it will
                likely be torn into strips and incorporated with other strips.)

                                                6. 21" x 19"

                                           7. 20" x 19"

                                              8. 20" x 20"

                                           9. 20" x 18"

                                           10. 9" x 10"

                                           11. 9" x 10"

                                           12. 9" x 10"

                                              13. 9" x 10"

                                           14. 9" x 10"  This was folded into a triangle.

                                            15. 9" .x 10"  This was folded into a triangle.

                                           16. 9" x 10"  This was folded into a triangle.

                                           17. 9" x 10"



2014 Snow Dyeing

This was my first attempt at snow dyeing. I've dyed with ice a couple of summers ago, but this year we had a substantial snow storm and enough snow to try using actual snow.  I put some snow directly out in the snow, but that was not a good idea. I lost track of where the fabric was as it was snowing at the time and the fabric was getting quickly covered up. Also it was freezing and my hands only had plastic disposable gloves covering them, so they froze! I doubt I'll try this method again. I also used containers to dye in. Tall ones with layers of fabric, snow, dye, snow and repeated for a total of four layers of fabric.  Then I had left over snow so I grabbed up some fabric that had previously been soaked in soda ash and dried and threw the colored snow on that. Here are some of the photos and pictures of the results. 

 Here are the containers with the fabric and snow and dye and sitting on my front porch to batch. I left them in the containers for 24 hours outside.

Here is the tray of the left over snow and dye and the dry fabric that was added.

The two piece that were in the leftover tray. Although the picture with the snow on top show green snow, the red dye grabbed on so quickly that it didn't give the green a chance.  The piece on the left was a fat quarter and the one on the right was a long skinny piece, about 6 inches wide by about 20 inches.

                                           1. 31" x 20"                                          2. 8 1/2" x 40"

These four piece were all in the same container and I think they are roughly in the order from the bottom of the container to the top as pictured here.  These were all folded roughly the same and put in the parfait containers, fabric, then snow dye snow and then another layer of fabric.  The container was put outside and left for about 24 hours before being rinsed out.

                                            3. 19" x 20"

                                                 4.18" x 20"

                                               5. 19" x 20"

                                           6. 16" x 20"

These four piece were all in the same container. They were all just scrunched and put in the container, then snow dye snow was layered on top of the fabric and then more fabric, etc.  The results are pictured in roughly the same order as they were placed in the container from bottom to the top. I'm pretty sure the bottom and top layers are correct, but not so sure about the 2nd and 3rd layers. I didn't keep very good records on those.

                                            7. 17" x 20"

                                              8. 18" x 20"

                                               9. 18" x 20"

                                           10. 18" x 20"

 I do know that as I washed these fabrics out and was drying them, I didn't have high hopes. But after they were dried and I ironed them out, I fell in love!  Now to figure out what I plan to do with them. Um.....

There are more fabrics batching out in the snow, but I have to figure out where I put them, so I'll have to wait until the snow melts, which in North Carolina shouldn't take too long. (Note: I went ahead and dug out the fabric and it's a good thing because there were some really high winds that would have blown the fabric all over the neighborhood!)