Several of us got together for an ice dyeing play day at Amy's. The weather had been close to 100 all week, but it cooled down for us to a perfect 85. We mixed up two buckets of soda ash, so we could pre-soak our fabrics. Amy had the backyard set up with wire shelving for racks and we all brought different plastic baskets, wire baskets, colanders and stuff to place the fabric in and let the ice drip through. Cheryl brought a large plastic tub, and a refrigerator shelf which she placed on bricks to suspend in the tub. She dyed a several yard piece of fabric all at once.
We wore aprons, rubber gloves and tried to remember the masks when working with the dry dye powder. Several of the ladies had silk scarves to dye, t-shirts and cotton napkins also.
We covered the baskets with plastic to let the ice melt and the dye to batch set. We had a wonderful potluck lunch and just visited and talked about what we were doing. After some time passed, all the ice melted pretty quickly, we took the fabric out of the baskets and put each piece into a Ziplock bag to take home and let set overnight.
Clare seams to like purple. The large piece of fabric she pinched the center of each half and twisted it into opposite directions to create the spiral.
Lorraine twisted her fabric from the corner and used the indigo color Procion MX dye to get the shibori like result.
Sara's multi color silk scarf matches her tie dye t-shirt.
Cheryl's large piece of fabric was the one in the tub. The other fabric was a combo of electric blue and indigo. We had many of the individually named colors of dye powder, instead of working with the 3 primaries and mixing our own blends. We feel this gave us much better results, because we kept getting the same purples and greens every time.
This was made with Chinese red and burgundy, the other with dutch chocolate and terracotta. Other favorite colors were lime squeeze, and hot pink, we also tried better black and jet black, they combined great with the bronze. I can't tell which was more "Black" because we did not use a high enough concentration of dye and we were mixing it with other colors.
Amy took her last few pieces of soda ashed fabric and hung it on the clothes line, she dripped liquid dyes on it, left over from our last dye workshop. The fabrics were left over night in the plastic bags, then rinsed until the water ran mostly clear, then washed with Synthrapol in the wash machine and dried and ironed. See the June meeting post to see the results.
Amy took her last few pieces of soda ashed fabric and hung it on the clothes line, she dripped liquid dyes on it, left over from our last dye workshop. The fabrics were left over night in the plastic bags, then rinsed until the water ran mostly clear, then washed with Synthrapol in the wash machine and dried and ironed. See the June meeting post to see the results.
Barb started out silk screening a hand carved flower stencil onto some lime green fabric, after it dried she used Shiva oil pastels to rub a large grid onto the fabric. Jana and Peggy used declourant plus to stencil, onto T-shirts. 
Amy used plain decolourant to stencil on several t-shirts, a spirograph pattern on a red T, and birch trees on a navy T. 
Meredith used the discharge paste to brush paint over previously quilted sections of fabric, creating a deep relief pattern of the quilting. 
Finally, Pat, Nancy and Vera played with bleeding tissue paper, applying it with water to white cotton handkerchiefs. They lay overlapping ripped pieces, to cover the cotton. Left to dry, then removing the tissue, it left a colorful pattern on the fabric. Nancy and Pat painted a fixative over the fabric, we'll see how it works out. Amy removed the tissue and rinsed hers when she got home, and the color almost all disappeared. A great time was had by all, and many fun techniques were tried. Show and tell at the next meeting will be exciting! Thank you everyone who participated, for being so creative.
As we worked in the morning Meredith's son came over with his fancy digital camera, and we posed for pictures, framed by a wooden picture frame, hanging from a dark maple tree. We hammed it up, and paired up for pics, and finally took a group pic. I can't wait to see them! We had a beautiful lunch, a large salad with all sorts of stuff to add to it, and warm ham and roll sandwiches, which I promise to get the recipe and post it here! Vera made a fruit layer coffee cake for dessert. 
After lunch Meredith showed us how she makes her glass beads, she and her husband have a double torch set-up on a sturdy workbench in the garage. She has a huge assortment of glass, and very carefully constructed a bead to show us. After it was in the kiln to cool slowly, she showed us a set of rectangles she had pre-cut and stacked, ready to fuse into a plate. 
Every one had a great time, dyeing and discharging and playing with products. As the heat rose, we started to fade out, and just sat in the shade and let the breeze cool us, as we chatted. Packing up and the hour drive home, finished us off. Thank you Meredith for your hospitality, and a wonderful time, being creative with friends.
