Ice Dyed Fabric

A friend of mine is creating an art quilt. She is starting by dying her own muslin in a process called ice dying.  I asked her to please teach me how to do it and she thankfully agreed to share her supplies with me. 

We began by soaking the muslin in pot ash.  It prepares the fabric to accept the dye. The dye is in powdered form and comes in man bright colors.  We each chose 3 colors for our buckets.

The powdered dyes

The wet fabric is then placed in a bucket with ice and dye in the following order: ice, dye, fabric, ice, dye, fabric, ice, dye.  The bucket is placed in the sun for a day while the ice melts,  and then the fabric is rinsed repeatedly.

Ice, Dye, fabric and repeat the layering

The bucket needs to sit in the warm sun, covered
with plastic, for at least a day to melt the ice

The fabric at the bottom is the darkest and the one on top ends up being the lightest.  The results have a tie-dyed effect.

 

The fabric on top of the bucket ends up being
lighter than the fabric at the bottom. 

You can never be sure of the results until
the fabric is all dry.

I am not sure what I am going to do with the fabric but I love the results.  I hope my friend lets me join her again in a dying session, but it requires a warm, sunny day.  I think we will not have any more of those in the Midwest for a while.  At least I have some fabric to play with throughout the long winter months.

- christina