Snow dyeing fabric

We got 3" of snow last week, and it gave me the itch to snow dye some fabric. The next day we got another 3", so I had plenty of snow to work with!

I love the clearance fabric bin at Joann's.  I picked up some bleached muslin, Kona PFD, black Kona, cotton buckram, etc. from the clearance bin. I washed them, then soaked them in soda ash water. The black Kona, I tied up with rubber bands and put it in a color remover solution. It was then washed, then soaked in soda ash water.

Here are my dye "buckets". The two round pots have two layers of fabric in them, the one on the tray on the right only has one.  I do have strainers/pasta inserts in the pots to prevent the fabric from sitting in the melted snow water. The tray on the right is a broiler tray (for craft use only!) that has a drain pan.

I sprinkled my dye powders on directly, but liquid Procion dyes could be used as well. I typically let the snow melt completely before washing out my fabrics. I let these sit overnight.

 Cotton buckram:

 

 Buckram Detail:

Muslin:

Detail

Kona:

Bleached Muslin:

Black Kona, color partially removed, then snow dyed.

My Favorite! ROCL Renaissance

Detail:

I think the orange/blue Kona may need another round!

Over dyeing fabric

Last summer, I tried to do some ombre dyeing with linen. I did a jade green one, a blue one, and a purple one.  I am not a fan of the jade green color and the ombre on the purple didn't turn out well. I  decided to over-dye a portion of the jade green one and the purple one.

 I love to remove some of the color using Rit color remover. I make a batch (outside, because it's stinky), wet the fabric with water and scrunch/rubberband them, and throw them in the bucket. I threw in some other fabrics I thought needed some help as well.

While these sat in the color remover, I made up my dye buckets. I used Azure, Marine Purple, and Cobalt blue with black added.

 I went around the house collecting any fabric I though needed a dye job. 

I removed and rinsed the fabrics that were in the Rit color remover, after about an hour. I left the rubberbands on while rinsing as I wanted them to create a pattern when I put them in the dye bucket. The jade green one was now a lovely aqua color so I decided not to over dye it. .

Here are my fabrics after removing them from the Rit color remover. The dark gray blob on the right was the purple linen with the lighter blob next to it was the jade. The multi-color blob on the lower left ended up pretty cool in the end.

I must not have mixed my dye powders well enough because the Azure and Purple fabrics have a lot of magenta spots on them. Some of the fabrics in the Azure bucket must have been blends as they are now a gross 80's country blue color and I didn't bother to photogragh them.

Here is a before picture of the Jade Green Linen. This picture does not show the true color at all.

After picture, the dark green spots are the true original color:

Purple Linen before:

After, my purple dye was a much redder purple. I find this fabric way more interesting now.

 

This fabric was scrunched in the pot and I guess I didn't open it up while it was dyeing, I really like the texture it created. This fabric is super soft too.

The fabric on the left is my favorite color-wise, I love these deep rich blues. The one on the right was rubberbanded put in the Rit Color Remover before dyeing. It had previously been ice dyed and was nice on one side but the other side was the icky jade green. I rubberbanded the sections I liked so the green section would get the color removed and be re-dyed.  I like how it turned out even if a lot of the original "pretty" colors were removed.

Color remover and over-dyeing

One of my favorite things to do to black fabric, or a dyed fabric that looks gross, is to use Rit color remover and then over dye. I had bought some periwinkle gauzy material and some black broadcloth fabric at the thrift store and wanted to play with them.

I wet all my fabrics first. I scrunched up half of the blue gauze and put rubber bands around it. The other half I did not scrunch and plan to dye another overall color. I scrunched some of the black pieces and accordion folded/rolled some.

In a bucket outside, I put a packet of Rit Color Remover. I boiled two big pots of water on the stove, then poured about 1 1/2 pots of hot water into the bucket. I stir the bucket, then add my fabric. I then put in a second packet of  Rit Color remover that I sprinkled on the fabric, then stirred it into the pot water. The color remover really stinks so it needs to be done outside or a well ventilated room. (Allen says it smells like someone is getting a perm).

At this point, I have two problems.

The gauzy fabric turns off-white almost immediately and I take the non-scrunched one out and put it in the washer. When it is done, I open the washer and it is blue again.  I have had this happen to be before. I think the fabric is polyester or some other non-cotton fabric. 

My next problem is, looking at the picture below, only one of the black pieces, which was a piece of black sheet and not the broadcloth I bought at the thrift store, has any color coming out of it. The thrift store black is not losing any of its color. So again, this must not be cotton. Total bummer.

Since I have a bucket of stinky color remover going, I go and get more of the black sheet material and fold and scrunch, and put in the bucket. I also add some scrunched linen pieces from my attempt at ombre dyeing.  I do add some more color remover at this point as well.  I also make a second bucket and put the pink/red velvet that I tried to Idye poly the other day. (Sometimes color leeches from fabrics in hot water and I did not want to make all the other fabrics pinkish so I did a separate bucket).

I let it sit for about an hour. I make two batches of Procion MX dye, one is Pagoda Red, the other is Lapis. I remove the fabrics from the color remover buckets, do a quick rinse under cool running water, then put the fabrics in the dye batches.

I stuck the gauzy fabrics in the dyes batches as well. I let the fabrics sit overnight and washed them all in the morning. I almost always do some shibori when I have a dye bucket going, so those results are here as well.

On the left, black sheet with color removed and over dyed Pagoda Red. On the right is shibori on white fabric (with some purple dye on it from a previous adventure), the top one was pleated prior to wrapping it to the pole.

 Detail

All these are black sheet with color removed, one scrunched, one pleated horizontally, one pleated diagonally, then dyed Lapis.

Detail

Shibori on white fabric (with some purple dye from previous experiment)

This is the gauze, a blotchy blue on the left and brown

The blue linen had very little color removed. Over dye was Pagoda Red.

The Jade Green had more color removed and was over dyed Lapis. I must have scrunched these too hard as very little dye got to the interior.

Here is the velvet, it was once pink and had some kind of flower or leaf pattern in a darker pink. The pattern is gone. The color is nice but there is a weird greenish spot about 10" in size. I don't know why it's a different color.

I love the blue over dyed fabrics. I have an issue with reds. I have yet to find a red dye that I really like. Most of the fabrics I have dyed red look unappealing. The pagoda red is more like a rust on these fabrics, which is nice, but not quite what I wanted. Does any one know a good red dye to try?