Monday, July 2, 2012

A new addiction, aka "I'm a glutton!

Jeez.... just when I think I have tried everything, something comes along to lure me into a new addiction! No, I'm not on drugs... unless you want to consider dyes a mind-altering substance. Now that I think of it, maybe they are! I don't snort 'em, or smoke 'em, or swallow them, but I do love to apply them all over fabric. For years, I have enjoyed tie-dye, but that was just a gateway drug to ice-cube... that's right! ICE-CUBE parfait dyeing! I happened to pick up a copy of the June/July issue of Quilting Arts magazine... put it aside for a few days, then browsed through it one day while I was eating my lunch. The article that grabbed me was 'dye your own iced parfait' by Carol Ludington. Now, I have done my own version of dyeing that involved freezing my scrunched fabric or garment in a small container, then pouring liquid dyes over and letting it batch for hours... nice alternative to regular low water immersion dyeing. But this method uses ice cubes and dye powders direct from the jar, in layers with each layer covered with ice cubes and sprinkled with dyes. I had to try it!
I chose Golden Yellow, Bronze, Deep Orange, Scarlet, Olive Drab and Lapis for my color pallet. Fortunately, I have a nice tall covered plastic container, and tore up some muslin to create six fat quarters, then I dove in. This morning, having batched the bunch overnight, I rinsed and laundered them. As I pulled each piece from the batching bucket, all I could think of was "OMG... they look like clean-up rags!". And at that point, they did. However, once they had been rinsed, laundered, dried and pressed, it was a whole different story! See what you think:







I applied different combinations of the above colors to each piece, and they were laid one on top of another, so there was some seepage through the layers as the ice cubes melted. I am thinking I want to try stretching one over canvas stretcher bars, or over a pre-stretched canvas, to see how they would look mounted. There is way too much complexity to try stitching, so maybe I'll just let the parfaits speak for themselves. Needless to say, this is not the last you'll see here about iced parfaits! I'm hooked...

5 comments:

Cate Rose said...

Very interesting, Judy. But how do you batch properly, since the mess is cold with ice?

Judy Sall Fiber Art said...

Hi, Connie. The trick is how long you batch, and the ice cubes gradually melt, allowing the dyes and soda ash to bond with the fiber. I generally batch at least 6 hours with my 'freeze dyed' method, but with the ice parfait, I allowed about 18 hours. The ice cubes or freezing simply slow the dye migration process... it's worth the wait!

Chris Daly said...

Judy, Your fabrics are so beautiful. Love them!

Louise in SW Saskatchewan said...

Judy, you would love the results you get with snow dyeing! It has become my main dyeing process. Generally you need to let the snow/ice melt, then the dye to warm back up to room temp before starting batching time. For me that adds 1-1.5 days to dyeing process. You also get more complex dye patterns by letting the fabrics sit with the snow for a period of time before adding the dyes. I use dark & med hues og dye mixed as I would for LWI dyeing

Carol R. Eaton Designs said...

The fabrics are beautiful and it's hard to stop once you get started!