Dyes, Dyes, and more Snow Dyes!

Though I did not continue to begin snow dyes on the last snow day, I could not stay out of the studio for long. With the next batch, I used only 2 cups of snow and half the dye solution from the "Black Magic" chart in Adrienne Buffington's book. The gradation from a light cerulean blue to a darkened blue with the addition of black. Each quart-sized bag contained one fat quarter of pima cotton soaked in soda-ash. I varied how I added the dyed snow to the bags, but it didn't make a ton of difference in the final fabrics anyway, as you can see:

Though I also really liked the first process for creating dyed fabric using snow, I was less thrilled by the waste of dye and the lightness of the final fabric, so in this next pair, I used what was left from the black magic gradation (about 5 tsp of cerulean blue solution), diluted it two times and poured that over the snow. In my setup, however, I decided to put a fat quarter of soda-ash soaked pima cotton in the bottom of the bucket before putting the grate over the bucket and another piece of soda-ash soaked pima, which had the snow and dye over top. Here are images from the process and the final outcome:

All images copyright Katrina Boles

Pin It