When I got a question asking about how the gallery swatches are made, two things dawned on me: first, that I should definitely explain my process, and second, that I […]
Ombre dress with dragonflies
I started with a dress from Dharma Trading that I was pretty sure my youngest would like. (She did.) Using a pale yellow dye bath, I ombred about eight inches […]
How much dye do you need?
When you start out, it can be hard to know how much dye to apply in ice dyeing. This is especially true if you’re applying it powder-over-ice, where not only […]
Do-overs: shaving cream marbling over ice dye
One of the inevitable side effects of doing so many fabric experiments is that I end up with some less-than-amazing pieces of fabric. Take the examples below. I can’t actually […]
Liquid-Under-Ice
When I began experimenting with different ice dye methods, I couldn’t help but notice that one was missing. I’d played with powder-over-ice, liquid-over-ice, powder-under-ice… But nowhere did I find anyone […]
How to deal with spotty color in ice dyeing
I was so disappointed the first time I ice-dyed with New Emerald Green. I’d had such high hopes. Green is one of my favorite colors, and I was envisioning my […]
Finding good racks for ice dyeing
For a long time I ice dyed without a rack. I knew that people used racks, sometimes. I thought it would be fun to experiment with one. But I never […]
Which ice dye method should you use?
When I started ice-dyeing, I always applied the dye powder on top of the ice. That’s how it was done in the tutorial I was working from, and since it […]
How to make your own soda ash
I’ve been ice-dyeing with fiber-reactive dyes for years, but I’ve actually never bought soda ash for it. This wasn’t intentional. The first time I wanted to ice-dye, I got everything […]
Ice dyeing with tricky neutral colors
More than a year after I started ice dyeing, my son asked for a gray and red sweatshirt. I was secretly delighted by this. My children were used to wearing […]