I thought I would take advantage of Judy's scrunch dyeing technique this month and use it for some snow-dyeing.
Most of the snow-dying I have seen involves setting up a rack and screen for the snow and dye to drip through the fabric. I've never done that -- I just let the fabric sit in the soup of melted snow and dye and I have always achieved really interesting fabrics that way. But I hate wasting dye. So I thought: what if I folded up fabric and put it under the scrunched fabric to act as a kind of rack and absorb some of the melted snow and dye? I figured I would get some pastel coordinating fabrics to go with my snow-dyes.
So I scrunched up fabric on top of the folded fabric (all of it was soda-soaked), added a layer of the powdery dry snow from my front garden, and poured on dye concentrate.
I brought all of the containers inside to batch overnight.
Of course, I got beautiful snow-dyes.
But the real surprise was underneath. No pale coordinating fabrics here. I got some great stuff with light and dark areas. I think that some of these will benefit from further over-dyeing to really bring the colors together.
I also tried sprinkling some dye powder directly on top of the packed snow.
I really like the results. And it was much quicker than mixing up the dyes into concentrate, then pouring them on the snow. I think that the best color is achieved by the folding and/or scrunching of the fabric before adding the snow. The one in the middle has a nice effect because I loosely folded the fabric in a fan shape, then scrunched the ends. So for "school nights," when I am pressed for time, this is a great option for me.
