I received a number of responses to last week’s post from readers in areas where there is no snow. Then I ran into a friend locally who had the same concern and I realized the problem … I live in the woods and, even though we’ve had a mild, warm, low-snow winter for Wisconsin – our trees are keeping me in plenty of snow to snow dye. I guess I hadn’t really noticed the lack of snow all around (duh). Here’s the current view from our deck:
This is the field across the road and my friend (and website designer) Di’s beautiful farm:
It’s hard to believe the contrast.
If you have no snow, do not despair. There is such a thing as “Freeze Dyeing”. Just go to the Milwaukee Art Quilters blog: http://milwaukeeartquilters.wordpress.com/page/2/ and scroll down to the directions in the September 25th post.
Just in case you’re dyeing to see the results from last week’s adventure – here are the burp cloths:
Plus Daddy and Mommy’s shirts and baby-to-be’s onesies and bibs:
The tie dyeing was a hit and the results were such fun!
Now I’d like to share my snow dyeing saga and what I learned along the way.
1. I waited until the snow was almost completely melted:
2. I dumped the bins onto the snowy yard:
3. I removed the bins:
4. and hung everything to drip and dry in the warm shed:
5. Then it was off to the laundromat for 2 cold water washes (with Color Catchers™ to absorb the excess dye) and a ride in the dryer.
And here’s the snow dyed results:
I was really quite pleased, but I didn’t like the way the fabric sat in the “muddy” water at the bottom of the bin while the snow melted. Thanks to Johanna for her comment about elevating the fabric with an old oven rack or cookie rack. Other suggestions were inverted deli containers along the bottom of the bin or even leftover chunks of pvc pipe.
I’m anxious to try this out on some of the leftover hunks of light value fabric in my stash. New life for old fabric! But I’d better get at it before the snow’s all gone!
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