Snow Dying

Finally it snowed last night.  It was so pretty when I got up this morning.  the sun was shinning, there was snow on all the branches of the trees.

This was about 10 AM, the snow was already beginning to melt and was blown off all the trees. By 2 PM our driveway was totally melted.  I was walking around outside with a sweatshirt on.

I decided I better get going if I was going to snow dye.  This may be my only chance this winter.  Here is my fabric soaking in water and soda ash.

For more specific directions go to my Nov  15 2011 post on ice dying.  It's the same except with ice.

I am dying the fabric  for the alter at church for World Day of Prayer.  Since I don't have enough bins to set the fabric on, I'm hoping that putting it on the stone driveway will work just as well.  I'll let you know in a few days.  Here I laid out fabric on the stones.  This was so that if there is any red clay working it's way up to the surface the bottom cloth will be the one to get it.  It will also be the one to kind of soak up the extra dye...????  It worked in the tub anyway. The bundle of cloth furthest away is silk, that's for me.

 Here the piles of cloth are all covered up with packed snow.  Very wet and a little slushy by now.  Being outside it will probably refreeze tonight, then tomorrow thaw out again.

 I've sprinkled procion dye on top of the snow.  About 1 teaspoon of red, about 1/2 teaspoon of  yellow, about the same for the fist lump of blue.  The final one is the silk and I put blue and red over that.

Here it is all covered up with plastic and held down with rocks.  Now comes the HARD part.  WAITING  ... WAITING and WAITING some more.  I found when I did the ice dying, when I left it alone for 48 hours it dyed better than the 24 hours.


I'll see you the end of the week when I have the results!