most of the 50 scarves I dyed last week - hanging to dry

This is just the pic for now – posted for an online friend to see while we are chatting!  Rest of post will come soon – I promise.

The view from my front door this am

I could hardly wait to get to the studio to get started prepping for snow dyeing. EXCEPT today was the day I had arranged for Elaine Robitaille of  http://www.tooaquarius.com/ to come to the studio.  She’s helping me get my website up and running FINALLY.  We had our chat and some lunch, then Elaine came outside to help me gather snow for my snow dyeing.  There was enough on the picnic table to fill my bin. 

Gathering the snow

After Elaine went home, I came back, put the scarves in the soda ash to soak while I set up the bins and mixed the dye concentrates.  I found some more new dyes I hadn’t tried yet, so it will be interesting to see how they turn out.  I put at least 2 different type of scarves per bin, some had 3 so I have between 2-3 dozen scarves in the snow dyeing process.  I also dyed a rayon top and a cotton T-shirt to see how the process works with clothing.

Bins of snow dyed items

Hopefully I can rinse these tomorrow and dye some fabric with the rest of the dye concentrates.  I don’t expect there to be enough snow to do any more snow dyeing.  As usual, I took the gloves off several times and have multi-colored hands.  I may as well get all the dyeing done so the dye can wear off over the weekend.

Scarves chosen by Jacinda for sale at Empire Clothing

These are the scarves that have headed over to Empire Clothing in Swift Current after Jacinda picked them out on Monday evening. She has a selection of my scarves including the jewel toned silk velvet, hand woven rayon ones with fringe, and the  silk habotai brights and painted scarves – all but 2 of the painted scarves that were there have sold, including the one I borrowed for my jurying interviews in March.  Looks like I will need to get to work painting some more scarves in May!  Jacinda has a shop full of interesting accessories and is the only retail location carrying my scarves in Swift Current.

Otherwise it’s been a fairly busy day preparing to leave for Quilt Canada in Calgary next week.  I finally found my Delegate package so I can gather and pack my supplies for the 2 2 day workshops I will be taking with Sandra Meech.  I am looking forward to 4 days just working on my own work!!

8"x54" snow-dyed silk charmeuse scarves

8″x54″ snow-dyed silk charmeuse scarves

14"x72" snow-dyed silk charmeuse scarves

11"x60" snowed dyed handwoven cotton scarves

14"x72" snow dyed handwoven cotton scarves

I I also managed to get to Milky Way Ice cream shop in Regina http://bit.ly/8Xa4D6.  I heard about it the other day on CBC.  It seems to be one of the signs of spring in Regina when it opens.  Their claim to fame is that they telephone folks and tell them what the flavour of the day for the soft ice cream is – oh yes – they have the regular flavours of soft ice cream – choc, vanilla , choc/vanilla twist, strawberry/vanilla twist - but also have a flavour of the day – today’s was creme de menthe so I passed on it.  It really is the best soft icecream I’ve had – and I’ve had some good stuff.  I think it may become a regular part of my Regina visits on Wednesdays – it’s only a few blocks from Broad Street.  It’s a family owned business and only takes cash.

I bought a kit of Color Hue Dyes last fall and had a great time using it to  dye silk scarves.  I tracked down a wholesaler, picked up my first order a week or so ago in Sweetgrass, MT,  and brought it back through Canada Customs commerically.  That was a learning experience in itself.  I now have all the colours available from this wholesaler so I can offer workshops like this in my studio or on site somewhere else.

We spend some time picking out colours from the scarves I’ve already made plus the colour samples and practicing how to apply the dye on paper towels.  This lets them get used to how the dye works and how they might want to apply it for the desired effect.  

 Since the first batch of scarves was made by me just having fun with the dyes, I didn’t write down amounts when mixing colors.  I remind them that they want something unique for themselves.  For these groups, I mix the colours for each person but other groups may want to do it themselves.

For privacy reasons, I am not showing students faces on the blog. All photos are clickable to see larger versions.

participants dyeing their scarves

some of the students' scarves drying before leaving

Our activity concluded with coffee and snacks brought by the rec coordinator.   Everyone seems quite pleased with the scarf they’ve created.  Some have taken the option of making a scarf for an additional fee to cover the scarf and dye costs.  Several of the participants have expressed interest in coming back to make another one.

Feedback from the recreation coordinator about last week’s participants is that they have been wearing the scarves they made to other activities.

So – it’s the first day of Spring and what am I doing – SNOW DYEING!  Finally!!!  I’ve been wanting to do snow dyeing since I first heard about it.  I was in the middle of all those deadlines and made myself wait until they’d been met.  The warm weather we’ve had lately had me concerned I wasn’t going to get to do it this year – but there were still some “drift” remaining on the north side of my studio building so I was in luck.  Looking at my schedule I decided I HAD to do it today or I might not get to do it at all.   

Yesterday evening I tore 24 1 yard pieces  of Kona PFD off the 125 yd bolt and pre-soaked them in soda ash for 30 min.  I left them in a damp pile to dye today. I went to the dollar store to get some baskets with slotted sides to let the snow melt out and not dilute the dyes. I found some that fit my dyeing dish pans very well.   

basket/bin combination for snow dyeing

 The next step was to put the soda ash soaked fabric into the bins so it would have lots of folds for the dye to work with.   

20 yards of fabric in bins ready for snow dyeing

 I mixed up my dye concentrates using Ann Johnson’s proportions in “Color by Accident”.  It was recommended by a number of folks to use colours made of several colours for best results with the snow dyeing  because the colour breaks into its component colours during the process.  I decided I would use some of the new MX dyes I bought from G&S dyes in Toronto  http://gsdyes.com/ .  I have 10 containers to mix my dye concentrates in so I used 10 of them.  Basically 2 reds, 2 greens, 2 purples, 2 yellows and navy and black.  Once those were done, it was time to get the snow.   

Time to go out and get the snow – I decided it would make more sense to bring the snow into the studio and put it in bins than to take 20 bins out and and lug them back inside.  My tall garbage container worked well – enough snow for about 1o bins.   

snow - was more the snow cone icy type than the granulated sugar type of snow we usually get

Once the snow was inside  it was time to work quickly and get it onto the fabric in the bins.  I discovered it took about half of the green bucket to give the proper depth of snow (2″ – 4″) or about 6 - 500 ml containers worth.   

bins of fabric packed with snow - ready to dye

 Some people recommend freezing the fabric before snow dyeing.  I didn’t have the means to do this so I let the snow sit on top of the fabric while I mixed the dye bottles from the concentrates – so they spent about half an hour getting cold while I did that and started dyeing the bins.  Then comes the fun part. Putting the dye on the snow.  I tried a variety of colour combinations – thinking of the colours used to make up the compound colours as well as a few “what if” type of combinations.    

fuschia and golden yellow dyes applied to snow - looks almost good enough to eat!

same bin 4 hrs later - dye is soaking through snow

20 bins snow dyeing

4 hours later the dye is soaking down thru the snow

  If you’ve been counting, you are wondering about the other 4 yards right?  Well since I only had 20 baskets, I decided I would dye the last 4 as layers (or parfaits if you use Color by Accident).  I looked at the remaining dye concentrates to decide what colours I would use.  I finally decided on burgundy (bottom), mixed purple and violet in one bottle for next layer), jade and dark green for next layer, and golden yellow for the the top layer – knowing that some of the combinations would give me a brown of some sort.  

I put the fabric in, covered it with a layer of snow then squirted dye over the snow layer, then next layer of fabric, snow, dye, and so on.   

burgundy and purple layers done, green layer covered with snow waiting for dye

green dye added to snow

last layer of fabric already wicking dye from layer below waiting for snow

all dyes added

 I will stop at the studio tomorrow on my way out of town to take some photos of how the snow dyeing is progressing – stay tuned!

 They placed ads in the local newspaper advertising the event from 7-9 pm .  An interesting assortment of friends and other folks came out to see the art and support us.

my photo items on display

some of my photo images on display

framed 5x7 - Prairie Lilies

items donated by the artists for the draws

All in all it was a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours.  Who wouldn’t like the chance to tell people about your work, chat with other artists and have a few nibblies.

I didn’t put my name in the draws for the artist items, but I did put it in for the draw for curling tickets to next week’s Women’s World Curling Championships.  Keep your fingers crossed. (Additional note – I got a call on Friday morning telling me my name was drawn for a curling ticket and I’ve chosen to go on Tuesday afternoon -woo hoo).