The June/July issue of Quilting Arts has an article on ice dyeing. It involves sprinkling dye powder on ice cubes which are on top of fabric so that the ice acts as a resist and the color melts down over the fabric. It's a lot like snow dyeing -- but with chunks. I've known a few people who don't mind messing with the powdered dyes and have achieved really good results with the powder-sprinkling technique.
I have to admit I hate messing with the dye powders. On dye day I put on my mask, measure everything out, mix it up, put it in bottles, and clean it up as quickly as possible so that I can whip off the mask and breathe. And get on with the dyeing portion of my program. But I was just enough intrigued by the fabric pictured in the magazine to try it.
I purchased a small bag of ice at the grocery store, ran home, and set up at the art table on the front porch. Of course a breeze blew up and I had to move everything inside to the dye studio (AKA the northeast corner of the garage).
I always set everything out on damp paper towels when I'm mixing up the dyes and this is mentioned as a good idea in the magazine story. It's pretty hard to do this without some spillage of dye powder.
I didn't have any fancy tall containers so I made do with these paint containers. I was able to get two or three layers in each.
I've included photos of the best fabrics from this. Was it worth the trouble of having to work wearing the mask? Well, I got more "meh" fabrics than great ones. And it looks a lot like the results I can get pouring dyes on fabric on plastic -- or any of the LWI (low water immersion) techniques. Or on snow. It seemed to work best on fat quarters rather than half yards (fat quarters were recommended in the magazine story).
Would I do it again? Maybe. I might try it with snow. Or maybe not. Usually I just pour the dyes over the snow. I like the results I get with that. Of course, we didn't get much snow last winter. And the grocery store always has ice -- even in winter.
