Last week we had our first snowfall, our grandsons love, love playing out in the snow, the youngest especially loves making snowmen. His first this year is a trio of tiny ones in the back of grandpa's work truck.
As I was out photographing him I remembered my winter pansies that were in full bloom before the snow came,
I dug down to them, picked the flowers and tried snow dyeing with them.
I read about this technique from India Flint's book Eco Colour.
She freezes her blue/purple flowers in the freezer before dyeing with them.
I rolled them up in wet wool mordanted with alum, tied a string around the wool and left them in a plastic bag for 6 days.
After washing and drying the wool this is the results.
I think I should have lightly steamed the wool as there was a lot of dye left in the flowers, the color may have been a lot darker.
I won't use this fabric for quilting for quite awhile until I see how the color holds.
One interesting thing is the cotton string (mordanted with alum) grabbed the color too. I don't usually have the greatest luck with cotton.
And a few days after the snowfall, here we are again back to Autumn with no snow in sight.
1 comment:
Wow, it turned out great. I've frozen the petals and dyed as directed in the book, but what a good idea to go out and collect frozen material right off the plants!
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