Ice Dying

I started seeing ice dying a couple years ago on different blogs and thought "that looked cool". I never got around to trying it till recently when Anna Joyce talked at my quilting guild. She had some lovely pieces that amazed me and when she talked about the simple process, I was hooked. I had to try it as soon as possible.

So I soaked a couple of cotton t-shirts in 1 cup of soda ash and about 2 gallons of warm water for about 20 minutes. I also soaked a small piece of heavy canvas. I like to use extra pieces of fabric to test processes when I'm working with dye. Anna Joyce had also done a really pretty piece of fabric that she sprinkled some dye on the fabric and achieved a kind of confetti effect.

I used two different dyes. One was Dharma Trading fiber reactive dye and the other was Precion Fiber Reactive dye. Both are almost the same but since results can depend on the supplies you use I wanted to use these dyes separately so I could better judge the results.  I scrunched my shirts on wire racks & covered them with ice. I have seen other people use large Tupperware containers and I think that will work better next time as you need a way to hold all the ice on top of the fabric. Mine kept falling off the sides and so there seemed to me a lot of white showing around the edges of my fabric.

I used Dharma Trading Caribbean Blue #132 & Baby Pink #12A on the t-shirt.

I sprinkled about 1/2 teaspoon of each color sort of randomly on top of the ice, some of the dye went directly on the shirt. 

I used Procion Pale Aqua #210 Peach #180 & Aqua Marina #069 on the v neck t-shirt..about 1/4 teaspoon of each color.

The Peach looked a lot more orange than I wanted, and the Pale Aqua looked lot lighter that I expected when I sprinkled the dye on top of the ice. But since dyed items always change color a after the process is complete I waited and hoped that I would get something that I liked.

I used Dharma Trading Baby Pink #12A & Wedgewood Blue #76 as a sprinkle on the fabric
I put a 1/4 teaspoon of each color in a spice jar with lid that would sprinkle the dye sparely. I used less than a 1/8 a teaspoon of each color.

One thing that was interesting that Anna Joyce mentioned was that the dyes will separate in ice and when you sprinkle the powder because of the chemistry. You can see in the photo below that there are some yellow spots that appeared when sprinkled the Baby Pink color.

There was also talk of using different types of ice, grated ice would melt faster meaning that the dye would soak into the material a little sooner than the large pieces of ice. I also read that grated ice would leave a little different design. So I grated some of the ice that I put on for the v-neck shirt & used the Procion dye with the grated ice. But on the day I did my dying it was about 70 degrees and it rained ever so slightly. So the ice did not seem to melt any faster on the day I tried this process. I think a warmer day will produce a little different result but I can not be sure till I test it again.

Pieces after about 10 hours of sitting outside.  On the left are the larger pieces of ice, they are not completely melted.  On the right is the shirt that I used mostly grated ice and you can see all the ice has melted. You can also barely see the pale aqua on the fabric, it's below the orange and right of the aqua marina...where the large white spot is located. I love to test processes and sample patterns but the hardest part of this process was leaving the dye on the shirts for 24 hours. I get impatient waiting and really wanted to see how these shirts would dye. I left the pieces in place overnight and checked them at 10am the next morning.

You can see that the colors did lighten up a little over night so there was hope that the colors would mellow after a wash. I really was not looking forward to a patch of bright orange, I wanted a soft peach color. 

Once washed and dried the shirts came out nice, the peach was more of a peach and not so orange. On a scale of 1-10..I would give these a 7, as I think I learned a couple of things that I should do different next time. I do want to try it with all one color and maybe do a shobori design on the material. 

All Girl BBQ

I have been having an All Girl BBQ for about 12 years now. It started at a friends house and when she stopped hosting the event I took over the task. It's become an annual event for a lot of ladies that I know, they ask me all year if I'm going to do it again as they are cleaning out their closet or they want to dye their hair again. It's the one day a year when I kick my husband out of the house from 2-10pm. I set up make-up, nail polish and hair dye in the driveway, there is a huge table of good and drink in the garage and in the way back on the "talk show set" I put all the clothes. Needless to say the clothes are alway the center of attention at this event. Though dying hair takes a very close second only to eating (which is necessary to living so I don't really count it). I felt a little sad this year as my local neighbor girl Sophie was going to be out of town with her cousins on the day of the event...so I didn't tell her. Only problem was her father let it slip as he was tasked with keeping my husband busy, he was talking to Sophie on the phone and said he had to keep Chris out of the yard because of the BBQ. She started to cry and told him she wanted to come home right now because it's the thing that she waits for all year. Next year I will make sure she is in town for the BBQ. 

Anyway, we had a couple of other young ladies...Elliot wanted to color her hair with pink & purple. He mother helped her and she loved it..it does look really cute. I think her mother did a really good job. Another friend brought a bunch of dirty temporary tattoos, I have one that says kiss my ass in really nice cursive script...you almost can't tell what it says. Katie did some cool yellow dye in her hair that glows in backlight. Too bad we did't have a black light to check it out, it was a nice color either way with her blond hair. Elliott also found the serial killer mask and had a great time with it on, at one point she was looking at her self in the mirror moving her head back and forth like she could not believe she was making it happen...it was a both creepy and cute at the same time if that is possible. Mara found a beautiful black dress with some wonderful lace on the bottom. It fit her perfectly! 

We were attacked with water balloons by the boys next door (boys get really jealous when you tell them they can't do something), we were able to steal their super soakers and attacked them back. Fun was had by all...except a couple of ladies actually got hit by water balloons...but mostly the boys were not able to get the balloons over the garage. It was very hot so the water shower was not terrible. At one point the boys stole the golf cart and my niece chased them down the street covering them in lipstick. They referred to the mess as war wounds. At the end of the evening my husband and brother came in and we all sat around the table, drinking and eating till very late into the night. I was happy to wake up and find the dish fairy had done all the dished and cleaned up the last of the food...THANK YOU KATIE!!

All Girl BBQ

For the last 10 years I have hosted an All Girl BBQ in early August. It's similar to a Naked Lady Party but with hair dye, nail polish and make-up. A friend of mine use to have these every year and when she left Portland, I found myself longing for a day of trading clothes, eating great food and trying many different colors of nail polish. Sometimes after her parties I would go home looking like Mimi from the Drew Carey show. 
A few of the same outfits would come back year after year, someone taking it home only to bring it back the next year…as with this gem. I love this 3 piece pant suit it looks like something that Maude would wear. 

One of the things I love about the BBQ is the little girls in my neighborhood love to come to these events. They dye their hair and try on all kind of make-up as well as playing dress up. Last year one of the neighbor girls Sophie was devastated that the party was the same weekend as horse camp. I explained that I would save her some cute clothes and when she got back I would dye her hair. This year Sophie did her own hair..as well as offering to do hair wraps for everyone at the BBQ. 

Anyway, no matter what you call it, All Girl BBQ, Naked Lady Party or clothes swap, it's always fun to spend a day with creative like minded ladies. I also get a wonderful new (to me) wardrobe. Some of the pieces of clothing end up in my studio waiting to be re-purposed, but a lot of things are donated to a local thrift shop. If you ever get a chance to go to an event like this…go it's good for your soul.