Guess who cleverly forgot to take any in progress shots. This technique is very easy and the results are gorgeous.
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You need a large deep tray of some kind, a disposable turkey roaster is ideal-it will need to hold water.
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A wire rack (raid the kitchen if you must, but soak and dishwasher it afterwards)
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Bag of ice
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Fibre reactive dies (like procion Mx, dharma trading have an awesome selection)
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Washing soda +hot water and a basin to soak your fabric.
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Cotton fabric.
Method: make up a solution of soda+hot water, about 1/5 volume soda to water.
Soak your fabric for at least 15 minutes in this water, wring out when ready.
Set the wire rack on the tray, and arrange your fabric on top of the rack, make it all scrunched up.
Pour your bag of ice on top of the fabric.
With gloves on sprinkle the dry powder dye randomly across the fabric, you don’t need much, only about one to two teaspoons for a turkey tray size.
Then let it sit overnight, or until we the ice has melted.
Rinse your fabric until the water runs clear.
Enjoy.
Tips: use just two primary colours of dye and anything in between those two. Don’t use the third primary or your colours will get muddy.
For example use red and yellow, and you will also get orange. Or Green+blue, or Red+purple
Try dying teeshirts, or linen shirts. Fibre reactive dyes will work with any fibres that have grown, that are not animal fibres. So linen, cotton, etc
. Great tutorial, concise and I appreciate the “with gloves on” part bolded. I’ve had trying ice dying on my list forever and will bookmark your tutorial for when I try it!