New Snow Dyed Pieces--At Least the Snow is Good for Something!

I decided to do a little more snow dyeing this week when I was snowed in. I have found that it is a lot of trouble, but I love the results.

For the piece above, I loosely twisted the fabric when I put it in the bottom of my plastic tub. 

This one got a loose accordian fold. 

This is a closeup of the accordian folded piece. 

The piece above was just wadded and bunched up. 

Closeup of the wadded/bunched fabric. 

I grabbed the center of this fabric and twisted it around and around. 

Close up. I can't explain the color variation of my pictures. Actually, all the fabrics are a reddish purple (not quite as much red as some of these pictures show. 

The picture above shows a progression--the bottom left is the shibori piece I did for www.andthenwesetitonfire. I really didn't like it, so I thought I'd try some other things. The top left is the same fabric as on the bottom left that has been bleach discharged then snow dyed. The piece on the right is the same fabric as the bottom left, but it has been snow dyed. These colors show up pretty much as they truly are.

It takes a lot of time and supplies for snow dyeing. I have numerous containers for the dye mixing and clean water. I have my dye, dust mask, measuring cups/spoons, gloves, etc. I used a pastry brush for mixing the dye powder in the water. It really worked well to break up the clumps of dye powder. This time I added urea to the water I mixed the dye with. The color did turn out a little darker, but I don't know if that had anything to do with it. 

This is what I call the "snow-cone phase" of snow dyeing. I squirted the dye (two different blues, magenta, and yellow) over the snow covered fabric. I let it sit (in my laundry room) for about four hours. The container was too heavy for me to lift, so I had to scoop the dyed snow out with a pitcher. All in all, it was a very messy project. Would I do it again...probably!