Blizzard of 2016 = Snow Dyeing

Winter storm Jonas hit northern Virginia about 1PM Friday, continued through the night and it is still snowing at 3PM Saturday.  We are easily at 20 inches, with more to come.  So what does one do with all that snow?  Snow dye, of course!  Elizabeth had her pieces prepped earlier in the week in anticipation, but unfortunately had to leave town due to a family emergency just before the storm hit.  So not to disappoint, I (Sue) started pulling things together Friday night by soaking some PFD (prepared for dyeing) fabric in a soda ash solution.  This afternoon I finally got things set up and dye applied.  I am trying some different things this time, a few shibori pieces, so we'll see what the results are some time tomorrow.

The piece on the left has the fabric banded around baseball size whiffle balls.  A smaller size might work better, but this is what I had available.  Don't know what you'll get until you try it, right?  In the pan underneath are 2 pieces - a half yard that is accordion pleated and rubber banded, and a fat quarter.  These will soak up the melting snow and dye.  The blue pan has a piece that is pole wrapped.  Normally, this would be set in a container of liquid dye, but again, another experiment to see if this works with snow.  The green pan is the standard scrunched half yard on top and a fat quarter below.  My philosophy is, if I don't like the results, they can always be over dyed!

Here are the pans packed with snow.  It only took 2 dishpans of snow to cover these - not even a dent in the amount of snow outside! 

It must be a blue day.  The left & center pans have baby blue dye and the right has azure blue with a bit of kingfisher blue added in.  This is another experiment.  Usually I mix a liquid dye solution to pour over the snow, but this time I decided to try it in powder form.   The reason for all blue is a project I have in mind.  I want light blue with plenty of white still showing, so that is the reason for the various shibori methods.  The azure blue on the green pan surprised me with how dark it is.  Hopefully the end result of all will be considerably lighter with some interesting effects.  Stay tuned for results!