Scrunch and Snow

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.