Monday, February 09, 2009

Snow and fabric dyeing

Well my new year 'resolution' to blog more didn't happen - we are now half way through February and this is only the second entry of the year - note to self - must try harder. This was the scene outside the house on Thursday last week - we had about 4" snow and more on Friday.

On Friday Gerard and Matt built a snowman in the back garden - he didn't last very long I'm sorry to say.


I spent part of Friday 'snow dyeing' - I had seen it mentioned on a couple of blogs, but it wasn't something which I had come across before. Basically you soak the fabric in a water, salt and soda solution, place it on a rack (which I didn't have so I used the utility room sink and a cat litter tray) then drizzle two or three colours of Procion dye solution over them.

Leave it until the snow has melted then wash it out and see the beautiful mottled results.



The two pieces of fabric that I dyed using golden yellow, fuschia and magenta turned out very well as you can see from the pictures, unfortunately the piece I dyed using golden yellow and medium blue only took the yellow and parts of it turned marginally green. I don't know why it didn't take the blue at all so have tried again today - that under the snow at the right of the picture below. I've also included some pieces of silk this time as well (mum's suggestion - thanks mum!). As the snow is now melting as it is raining I don't know that I'll get any more opportunities this winter to play with this techniques. I'll just have to enjoy using the pretty pieces of fabric that have been created.