Snow dyeing vs dyeing in a jar

So I thought I would try comparing the results snow dyeing a quarter yard of white cotton fabric and taking the same sized piece of fabric and scrunching it into a small mason jar and pouring over liquid dyes.  I used the same colours and amounts of dye for each.  I used navy blue, scarlet and turquoise. Here is the snow dyed piece below.

 And here is my jar dyed piece below.

I like both of them although they're definitely different.  So what did I conclude from this?  Even if I don't have snow I can get some interesting results.

Snow dyeing step by step

I wanted to take what I learned from Pat Hardie a few weeks ago and do a smaller version of it.  So yesterday I snow dyed some smaller piece of white cotton a little larger than a quarter yard.  Here are the two pieces of fabric presoaked in soda ash solution, wrung out, scrunched up and put in some produce containers.

Here they are with about an inch of snow put on top of each.

Here are the dye solutions ready to spoon onto the snow.  They are Procion Mx dyes carefully mixed with water.  The colours don't look the way they finish up.  I have black here, scarlet, grass green and golden yellow.

Next I dribbled the dyes onto the snow with the spoons.   I used black, golden yellow and scarlet in the top one and black, golden yellow and grass green in the second.   I covered the containers and put them into the garage overnight.

The next morning they looked like this.

I put them inside because they needed to finish melting.  I rinsed and washed the fabrics.  I hung them to dry and ironed them.  Here are the results!  I'm happy with them.  They do look a little different than the fabric I dyed a few weeks ago.  I'm grateful to Pat for showing me this fun technique.  A great winter activity while I wait for spring to come.  Thanks for stopping by.

Snow dyeing

A few weeks ago I went to my friend's house and she showed me how to do snow dyeing.  The snow was kind of melting so it was quite granular.  I'm very pleased with the results.  Here are some of the photos of my dyed one metre pieces. I've laid two fabrics side by side below.

The dye is poured onto a layer of snow on top of a piece of fabric and as it melts the colours create colour and patterns on the fabric.

 

Here's a closer photo of the pink fabric above.

 

For the orange fabric below I only used two colours but for the rest I used three.  Three seems to be the magic number before you start creating muddy combinations. Although muddy might be fun. Today I'm using some of my leftover dyes to snow dye much smaller pieces of fabric.  Step by step photos and results to follow tomorrow.

 

New purse

I finally finished making a new purse for myself.  I'm kind of fussy so sometimes it takes me a while.  I had a few prototypes going.  The body is made of brocade and the flap has an appliqued flower on it with sheer fabric over it.  It's large enough to carry all my things.  And of course it's dark blue since I love blue.  Here's the result:

Christmas card making

Recently I've been making my Christmas cards for this year.  Here are some photos of the progression of printing I did.

Here are the trees that printed using a fern leaf below.  I printed on white fabric.  The top fabric strip is the first step.  I painted a sky.  The bottom strip is the same fabric with the ferns printed on them to look like Christmas trees.

 
Then I painted on some silver paint and added some Christmas balls below.

Next I cut out the individual trees and put them on my cards.  It's too bad I had to cut them out in a way because they looked kind of good in a line.  So now I'll sign them and send them out soon.  Talk to you soon.

Sttitsville Library Exhibit - Canadian Landmarks

I've been busy the last while organizing the Stittsville library exhibit that we have had every year for several years with Out-of-the-Box.   I was the organizer this year.  The theme this year was Canadian Landmarks.  This could be interpreted fairly loosely as a place, an event in Canadian history, something recognizably Canadian etc.  We had quite a few pieces submitted which was great.  We hung up the show on November 1st.  It will be at the Stittsville Library for the month of November so if you're in town, please go and have a look.  Here are a few photos.  And there are prices on the artwork for many of them.

The Tim Hortons piece is a rug hooking done by hand.  A lot of work!

There's a glass display case with three dimensional objects too.  This is a doll representing the lady who sewed the first Canadian flag in 1964.

This one is called Ode to Newfoundland.  Juanita Sauve created this one and she wrote a song Ode to Newfoundland which is on the back of the piece.

Do go and have a look at the show if you can.  Thanks for having a look.

Gunnel Hag workshop

A few weekends ago I went to a wonderful workshop with Gunnel Hag.  She taught us her surface design techniques using her own line of fabric pigments, Colour Vie.  I especially enjoyed the flour paste resist and wax resist techniques.  Here is a photo of some of our pieces hanging up to dry.  The colours were vibrant.

Here Gunnel painted over a waxed surface.  The wax was rubbed on like a crayon in this case with a textured surface underneath.

Below is a photo of the flour paste piece I did in the class.  We applied flour paste to a piece of fabric and let it dry in the sun.  We crinkled it up.  We painted over the dried crinkled flour paste, let it dry again and then painted in another colour.  We repeated a few times and rinsed out the flour paste.

Here's another piece I made in the class below.  In this one I painted with a textured surface underneath and then stamped on top with my own rectangular stamp.

Here I used her colours to stamp on a white t-shirt.  I printed with wooden print blocks hand carved in India.

Thanks for having a look!