Snow Dyeing

 On Monday we had a foot of snow! Great fun! Time for snow dyeing!  I thought I would write up a little demo on how I do my snow dyeing.

I start off with Prepared for Dyeing (PFD) fabric. I have several bolts of Moda's version, but any brand will do. I tear my fabric into either yard or half yard pieces.

Soda Ash Bucket

Next it goes into the soda ash bucket. I let it soak for 10-15 minutes, making sure that it is fully saturated. I use an old wooden spaghetti fork to stir it around and to push it down into the liquid. *NOTE*when ever you use any kitchen tools in the dyeing studio, they can never go home to the kitchen!

Out of the bucket

Using gloves, I wring out the pieces and toss them into a plastic wash tub.

Mixing dyes

While the fabric is soaking, I will mix up dyes if I need more than I already have mixed up. I spread out a dampened mop up cloth to catch any stray powder. ALWAYS wear a mask when handling powder dyes.

Ready to go

Ready for snow

I have been playing with twisting some of my fabrics. In the wash tubs I try to spread out the fabric as much as possible. In the round ice cream buckets I played with some twists and accordion folds.

Snowed!

I then dump a bunch of snow on top of the fabric. In the past I have crammed it full of snow. This time I was testing just making sure that there was a decent layer of snow on the fabric.

Dyed

I pour the liquid dye over the snow in various patterns. I found out last year that some colors will meld and make brown! LOL! So this year I am trying out dyeing with complimentary colors.

All the dyed snow

I do this in the afternoon and let the snow melt overnight. I guess you could do it in the morning and rinse out in the evening. Whatever works for your schedule.

Melted snow

I love to see what dyes look like after the snow melts! Even though you think you know what you are getting, it is never quite what you expect.

Rinsing

I rinse out all the pieces.  I then toss them into a big bucket of clean water and let them stew for a bit. Then another quick rinse and into the washer.

Synthrapol

I wash the batch with Synthrapol. It helps set the dyes.

Brown, terra cotta and a bit of purple

I am trying to dye a background for a flower quilt. I have had several attempts that didn't quite turn out the way I wanted it to. Love this piece, but I am not sure that it is right for my flower.

blues

I may go back and over dye the light area

Pleated twist

I took quick photographs of the finished fabrics out in the snow. Some of the photos look a bit on the blue side.

Another twist

I may go back and over dye the light areas on this piece. I am really happy with the way the twist turned out.

Navy, forest green and yellow

Another folded one

This piece looks great in person. I folded it in half and then accordion folded it. I swirled it into the round bucket.

Another accordion fold,.

My favorites

These last two are much brighter in person. I love the bottom one the best of all this batch.

This is my off the wall and finished Friday post for this week.

Design Wall Monday

What a surprise for Mother's Day, Snow! My first thought is "there go all the baby peaches on the tree". 

My backyard, May 11, 2014

And then I realized I could have one more snow dyeing session! So I rushed around getting my PFD fabric ready to go into the tubs and sweetie filled them with snow.

One of my tubs of snow dyeing

I like to let them melt overnight, so today is rinse and washout day!  I will post the results later in the week.

And since I was unable to go out and pull weeds, I spent some serious time in the sewing room. I was able to get my design arranged, triangles sewn into squares and then the squares squared up. Today I will sew the squares into a top. I am happy with the way it turned out. Can't wait to see how Diane's turns out.

This is my Design Wall Monday post!

I am participating in Sew Mama Sew's giveaway day! Go to this post to enter!

Retreating with Lisa

My friend Lisa and I are in Fountain Green at the Pie Plate Super Spring Retreat! Lisa taught a dyeing class this afternoon, she had a blast!

Lisa in action!

I taught my class "September" this evening. It was a lot of fun. The students got a lot accomplished. Everyone seemed to enjoy the class.

My work space

I had spent some time yesterday making up some sample blocks.  This is how my work space always looks after a bit of sewing. Home or away.

Sample block in progress

Attaching blocks demo

I love when each student brings a unique color scheme to work with in class. I had dug through my scrap bags and pulled out white, green and blue strips.

Trina's block

Trina used a jelly roll.

Tammy's block

Tammy used bright, colorful citrus colors. The multicolored polka dot fabric was her inspiration for the color scheme.

Pauline's blocks

Pauline used her collection of Hawaiian prints. I love the way she was able to highlight the old truck and the parrot!

This is my Off the Wall post for this week, check out Nina-Marie's blog to see what everyone else is up to.

My Craftsy class giveaway is still open, a winner will be drawn on the 21st, so check out this post to enter!

Snow Dyeing the Results post

Snow today!

Last night's heavy rain turned to snow overnight.  Not a lot of the white stuff, but enough to cover the ground. It reminded me that I had never shown the results of my snow dyeing last month. So here is the snow dyes.

#1 Jade and terra cotta

#2 orange yellow and dark blue

#3 terra cotta, brown & forest green

#4 yellow and orange

I don't know that this shows up well in the photograph, but it has some hints of a purple. I am pleased with this one.

This is #1 from above, love it!

This is #2 from above,hmmm

This did not turn out the way that I had expected!  I love it, but I had no idea that it was going to turn into a mud pile. So the next time I left out the blue and got #4.

Blue is my "color". I love the way that this one turned out. You just can't go wrong with blue!

#3 from above

I do like this one, I just thought it would be more green.

#4

So the second snow dyeing I made sure to only put orange and yellow on this piece.  I had a lot of orange and only a tiny bit of yellow left.

For Karen

When I showed this to my knitting friend Karen, she claimed it! I am to make her something with this, I haven't quite figured out exactly what, but I have a few ideas brewing.

Fuchsia and turquoise

Another yard piece. Another one that I really love!

I had a lot of fun with the snow dyeing!  Even though we had a tiny bit of snow today, it is not enough to do another round. And the way that the Spring weather is in our area, I may or may not be able to do another batch of snow dyeing.  

Check back on my blog on Sunday I have a special post coming up!

This is my Off the Wall post for this week.  Check out what everyone else is up to at Nina-Marie's blog.

Back to Reality

Sweetie and I went off on a long trip to Arizona over the holidays.  It was so nice to be in the warmth for a while.  We visited friends in Tucson and also in Benson.  We hooked up with some friends from home in Quartzsite.  It was a wonderful trip!  A couple of photographs from the trip.

This was in Benson.  I love the streaks in the sky!

We were camped right next to this guy in Quartzsite.

Sunset in Nevada on our last night on the road.

It seems to take a week to get back in gear after being gone for two and half weeks.  I think I am back in gear.  I had a guild meeting on Wednesday, took the dogs to the vet on Thursday, worked the quilt shop on Friday.  I also had to break down and search out a new ISP.  The connection and customer service problems were still going on when we got back. So that took most of my Tuesday afternoon.

When I got to the shop yesterday I saw that the 3 bolts of PFD that the owner had ordered for me had arrived!  So today was a dyeing day!  I will rinse out in the next day or so.  

Yay!

Today's colors

Mixed on a damp mop up rag.

No idea where I was going with this one.  It will be fun to play with.

 
I also dyed four half yards in ziplock bags.

This is my Off the Wall post for this week.  Check out what everyone else is up to at Nina-Marie's blog.