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Sunday, December 16, 2012

Adventures in Ice Cube Dyeing

Back on this blogpost I mentioned that I tried ice cube dyeing. It's a super easy why to dye fabric. I equate it to cooking with a crock pot. Put everything in at once and let it cook.

Being that it was my first try at this technique, I wanted to dye a piece of clothing along with fabric to see how each would take to this process. Sometime ago, I brought a T-shirt from Dharma that would be fun to dye.  I decided to use the leftover Dharma's Procion dye in Periwinkle, Blue Violet and Sapphire Blue from my Delphinium project.

First, I soaked the shirt and a piece of cotton fabric in soak ash. After both pieces had dried, I started by layering the fabric in the bucket. Alternating fabric, ice cubes then sprinkling the dye. Then the t-shirt was place on top of the fabric. Again, layering t-shirt, ice cubes then dye.



After the ice cubes had melted, about 24 hours, I rinsed out the t-shirt and fabric then left them to dry. I was pleasantly surprised to see the results once both pieces had dried. The t-shirt had dyed the way I thought the technique should look with good variation of light and dark areas.

front of shirt

back of shirt

 




The fabric dyed a bit darker that the t-shirt due to the difference in the type fabric. I like the results of both items. This is definately a technique that I will try again.




6 comments:

  1. Great results. I tried it recently using some clothes pin resists and didn't let fabric dry after soaking, just wrung it out hard. I agree, this is fun. Have a t shirt set aside, just waiting for the time. Missed you at SAA holiday party.

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    1. Hi joanell-I like your idea of using clothes pin resists. I can think of other objects that can work with this technique. I'm interested to see your fabric/t-shirt results.

      I'm going to try to make it to jo griffiths solo exhibt at soft expressions in January. Hopefully, we can catch up then.

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  2. Both dye results are great. Even though the yardage piece does not have as much variation in lights and darks as the t-shirt piece, it is really dramatic and will offer lots of artistic opportunities.

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    1. Thanks for commenting, Linda. It was a fun process. Next time I'm down at your place, maybe we can give it a try.

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  3. It looks like such fun! I want to try it now, thanks for sharing.

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    1. Hi Cindy-I hope you get a chance to try it. Thanks for commenting.

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