ice dying fabric

Sunday afternoon I decided to try dying fabric using the ice dye method. 
1. I soaked my all cotton fabric in a mix of 1 cup of soda ash in 1 gal of hot water, for about 1/2 hour.
2. Wearing rubber gloves, I took the fabric out of the soda ash water and slightly wrung it to get excess water out. 
3. I then folded it in half corner to corner then in half again corner to corner.  I loosely pleated it and put a few rubber bands on to keep the pleats.










4. I then curled it up on the grate which I placed over a plastic wash basin. (to collect all the melted ice/dye)
I quickly learned that the grate let the ice cubes slip through, so I took a piece of plastic screening and laid it on top of the grate.

5. I sprinkled 1/4 teaspoon of the powered procion dye on top of the ice. Remember to wear your face mask.  Here I used brite yellow, Chinese red, and medium brown (from Dharma).

 6. Then comes the hard part... cover it up with plastic and leave it for at least 24 hours.

7. This is what it looked like when I removed the plastic.  I then unbanded it and put it in a bucket of water.  Left it overnight in the water.  Next day I rinsed it til clear water came out and washed it with synthropol.

Here is the result.  I was so happy with it I put another together today.  This time I put a piece of fabric in the bottom of the pan to get a two for 1.











Try it it's easy!  The original instructions are in "Quilting Arts" magazine Sept/Oct issue.

Bette