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| Some wet, some dried |
So I was browsing Pinterest, as always, and was looking for new dye techniques. I came across a few posts with some really pretty fabrics that were made using a technique called ice dying. I decided that it would be a really suitable pattern for making bow ties, so I took a trip to my local craft store, ran into one of my aunts and one of my cousins there, got some necessary supplies, and got to work. I ended up following
this tutorial.
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| Just pretend like I rotated it. |
This is my first time working with soda ash, so once I see how this turns out, I might consider investing in more from here on out. I just wanted to use the normal storage tubs I always use, so I found this rubber basket thing that I decided to cut the bottom out of and I figured I would use that as a rack on top of the tub.
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| A long 20 minutes later... |
After the fabric soaked in the soda ash, I dumped out the water and used the same tub. I ultimately decided on scarlet, purple, and royal blue dye. The tutorial said to use plastic spoons, but I couldn't find any since Mom rearranged the pantry, so I just used these little bathroom cups.
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| Clockwise from top: royal blue, scarlet, purple. |
A quick trip to the kitchen for ice later, I was ready to start the fun part.
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| The setup |
In retrospect, I probably didn't need to cut the basket apart, but it makes potential adaptation to a larger container easier.
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| About 5 minutes in |
It's hard to believe, but somewhere under that ice that looks like charcoal is a piece of fabric about to have a lot of color thrust upon it.
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| I thought the melting ice looked really cool. |
Well, I have no idea how this is going to turn out. I guess we'll find out in about 24 hours.
UPDATE
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| This is a second batch. |
I ended up rinsing the first piece of fabric after about 16 hours because I panicked when I looked at it and saw a solid black lump. I was worried that I used way too much dye and that it would be so dark that all the colors would blend together into some form of dark mass. Once I washed it and let it air dry, I was pleasantly surprised.
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| The bottom left one is fully dry. |
In the picture, the light purple one in the bottom left corner is the first piece I did. The other three are still wet from being washed, so I'm looking forward to see how they look once they're dry. I did let those sit for about 24 hours though, so the color had a little more time to saturate the fabric. They may turn out a little lighter than what I would like, since I used about half the amount of dye in these than I did for the first one. I look at them, and they remind me a lot of watercolor paintings. I really like how this turned out, and will definitely be using this technique again in the future.
