Well, so far i am not impressed with the snow dyeing! I followed the instructions to a t –except that i halved the total dye and total water as a cup of each seemed like a lot of fluid!!) and to me it looks a bloody Dexter mess. Glad i did downsize the amount: look at all the runoff…………Half a cup of each colour plus all the snow melt is a hell of a lot of liquid!
Used red, violet and orange:
Tray underneath supported on little feeties so there’s space between it and the very bottom layer:
Both above taken around 1PM; below around 7 PM, not much action in thawing:
Below, tray under, pretty but not sure any of that lovely fracturing of colour that is supposed to happen with this technique is happening….
And look at all the run-off!!!!
I think there may have been a small murder in here when i wasn’t looking…..
When the snow has gone, i will wrap and batch and we’ll see– i will have at least some rich colour, a vast improvement over the first time i tried this in 2011.
And because of the teeny weeny little flecks of dye powder that seem to be floating and landing everywhere no matter my precautions, i didn’t get a lot of work done on Nightmare Interrupted, for fear it would be irretrievably spotted.
kaiteM.
January 25, 2013 at 8:06 pm
Eeek!
arlee
January 25, 2013 at 10:14 pm
SCREECH!
Deb
January 25, 2013 at 9:08 pm
Cleaning up that mess does not look like fun. Are the dyes toxic? If not, could you just do it outside, bury the fabric in the snow, and wait for spring (sometime in July! LOL!), and the “mess” part would just sink into the ground.
arlee
January 25, 2013 at 10:14 pm
well, toxic is as toxic does, i certainly wouldn’t drink them or pour them in my garden
Procion needs to be heat batched so alas, no burying in the (outside) snow!
Pia
January 26, 2013 at 12:33 am
I meant to try this as well, but seem to have forgot – they’ve predicted that all the snow and frost will leave tomorrow, so I guess that’s one task less to worry about.
thredfairy
January 26, 2013 at 3:32 am
Have seen a technique which just uses the dye powder on the snow rather than the liquid.
Sharron Begg
January 26, 2013 at 5:13 am
I like how you put that inner ring in ol’ Boney … it really defined the circle nicely and gives the illusion of being a reflective surface … like the chrome ring on a tire ! A very nice piece, btw
Good luck with the snow dyeing. I appreciate your ‘waste’ issue … too bad that dye wasn’t leaking away onto another cloth under your basket
marginmirror
January 26, 2013 at 6:20 am
It’s generally preferable not to wait till all the snow has melted. You could have rinsed it off 3-4 hours after setting up. This makes the fabric more lively and less solidly-coloured (unless solid is what you’re after). I take my tips from this tutorial at Gayle’s Gallery: http://gaylemckay.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/snow-dyeing-tutorial/
That said, yesterday I forgot about my snow dye batch till all the snow had melted and I was very lucky it turned out okay!
arlee
January 26, 2013 at 8:54 am
I used the instructions from Dharma. I can see that even now as i pull to batch, that i am not going to get anything but solid colour……oh well…..
Julie
January 26, 2013 at 1:59 pm
I’ve done snow dyeing here in the UK a few times with mixed results. I usually scrunch the fabric up so that it’s not lying flat and that gives hills and hollows where the dye takes longer to reach. I take the snow off before it has all dissolved too especially if I see the dye is spreading too far. I recently did one batch with some powdrered microwave dyes and got very solid results but a second batch with diluted dyes worked better. You may find you’ve got some nice colour blends when you wash it out. Serendipity!
Wendy Jack
January 26, 2013 at 3:12 pm
Hey there! I feel your pain re the snow dyeing. I tried ice dyeing last year using the liquid on the ice and got the same result you did. I tried something a bit different this year – I sprinkled powder over the snow, stirred it up and then spread it out. You’re welcome to check out my very short and not very informative pictorial here on my facebook page. The browns were done with acid dyes and the blues with procion. Don’t dispair – it does get better and it is fun. Oh – and the runoff – I froze in old containers to use in ice dyeing.
Good luck!
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.404257709658374.97241.225066377577509&type=1