What’s fun about Craftcation is that they bring makers together from all over. That means crafty knowledge and expertise abounds and you get to take all kinds of crafty workshops. My super talented friend roomie Rebecca taught a number of dyeing workshops and I got to join her for one of her ice dyeing classes. Ice dyeing is so magical!

Rebecca gave an overview of the chemistry and art of ice dyeing and provided a demo. She had lots of samples, too, for inspiration, and she even made recipe cards if you wanted to work with specific color combos. This was helpful in trying to narrow down what colors to use (because I wanted to use them all!).

We each dyed a bandana and a pair of socks. Similar to shibori dyeing, you can manipulate your fabric with folds or ties; you can also simply crinkle your fabric or leave them flat. The ice does lots of magic as it melts. The water travels and moves the colors throughout the fabric.

First, we prepared the fabric with an alum solution. We topped the fabric with ice – you can use any kind of ice (cubed, crushed, …). Then we sprinkled a power dye on top – we used Dharma Trading Co fiber reactive dyes.

I rolled my socks up like little sushi rolls and my bandana like a pretzel – I guess I was hungry; it was almost lunch after all. I was inspired by hummingbirds and picked pink/orange colors and grey. (We shared work spaces – my pieces are at the bottom.)

What’s so interesting about the powdered dye is that each color is made up of different pigments. So if you use a grey, for example, you may see blue and purple pigments in your finished project. You never really know what you’re going to get, which is part of the fun.

After sprinkling with dye, we lined up our projects in the sun to let the ice melt and then let the fabric sit for 24 hours before rinsing in cold water.

I love how my projects turned out! Thank you to Rebecca for teaching such a fun class and giving us inspiration for future colorful ice dye projects!

PS Find Rebecca and all of her colorful, huggable goodies on Oodlebadoodle.