ice dyeing

Friends of mine who live in the US have lots of snow at the moment and were able to do some snow dyeing. Here in the Netherlands I don't think we had more than 2 mm of snow this winter. Don't know whether I really miss it or not. Anyway the talking they did about the snow dyeing and the pictures I saw, inspired me to do some ice dyeing. If you are not familiair with this type of dyeing it is very easy. Presoak a piece of fabric in soda ash, wring it out and place it in a container. Put this container in your freezer. After a couple of hours the fabric is frozen solid and you can take the container out of the freezer. Pour the dye mixture over the fabric and let it batch. While the fabric defrosts, the dye can penetrate the fabric and creates very crystalline patterns. Out of experience I can say this technique does not work if you roll the fabric into a ball and let it freeze like that. I did that once with a piece of fabric. The dye only penetrated the outer borders of the fabric and the inside of the ball part remained white. Had to overdye that piece of fabric before it looked good.