It Snowed! I Dyed!      

Wow! A couple of weeks ago The Polar Vortex hit Arkansas! Snow, below zero temps, Ice, all kinds of lovely things! I basically stayed inside in my jammies, keeping warm, with no desire to step outside until I read a Facebook post by Lynn Krawczyk about snow-dyeing. She mentioned a blog with more info, bloombakecreate.com by Lynda Heines so I  checked her blog out. I had a lot of dyeing paraphernalia, but had not done any dyeing since the summer of 1988 when I taught crafts at a boys camp. I kept making plans to dye, but never got around to it. My word for 2014 is "RISK" soooo I decided to just do it!

I had several kinds of dye, but decided to use red 221 Dylon cold water dye(snow is, after all, cold!). I scrounged around for 3 containers, platforms to put inside the containers with holes so the fabric would not sit in the dye, prepared for dyeing fabric, plain muslin, and a measuring cup and spoon. I got ready to mix the powdered dye, but the directions said I needed to wear a face mask and gloves. Found the gloves, but no face mask until I remembered my mask I wear in cold weather(it is, after all, cold!) Enchanting!!!!

                                         

  I was ready. I mixed the dye, cutting the water by 1/2. I also had to mix a combination of salt, dye fixative and warm water. When those were all mixed together and I put the mixture out in the snow to cool(it was, after all, cold!) I cut the yard of Robert Kaufman Kona PFD fabric into fat quarters and had a small piece of plain muslin. I scrunched and pleated these and laid them in the containers

Next I piled snow in the containers and poured the dye over it. 

After that I went off and left the containers outside. After a few days, 

when the snow had melted in the containers, I brought them in, drained the dye, rinsed the fabric until the water ran fairly clear, hand washed it in hot water and detergent, dried them a bit in the dryer and ironed.  There was a Whoopsi! I forgot to put the gloves on before I rinsed out the fabrics! You might say I got caught red-handed!!!!!

                            Ta-Da!!!!!!!

             They look like stained glass on my door!




Here is a close up.
Look at all the different colors!
 THE SNOW DOES THAT!!!





Notice the piece of fabric on the right in this pic.

That was the plain muslin.
It is not as vibrant as the PFD.
I really love it all and am so glad I DID IT!!!!



As you can tell in the pic, it is now Sunny in Arkansas, but if it
snows again, I will do some more of this! RISK! Risk! Risk!

Kathy