GIRLFRIEND ART CAMP IN AZ

I'm fortunate to have such a generous friend who has now offered her home for the 5th year in a row for our "Girlfriend Art Camp". (Thank you Nan!!)  We planned to do some ice-dyeing one day, but ended up doing two trays the first day and one each the next two days.

 I've shared the steps involved with this technique several times in the past so this is only a brief overview.  After soaking our fabrics in soda ash, squeezing out the excess after 24 hours, we layered them in plastic trays.....one layer on the bottom to catch the extra dye, then added raised racks to hold the remaining fabric.  

I had recently read that soaking for 24 hours achieves better color......so we tried that approach....frankly, the color was worse. So we went back to doing just quick soaks instead.

 The fabrics were covered with ice.

Dye powder was applied (wearing masks and gloves).

Then encased with black plastic and left out in the warm AZ sun.  We waited till the next morning to view our creations.

 In the meantime, we made personal pizzas......way too much good food is consumed in these couple of days.

 Here's the biggest success.  Nan had purchased a never worn wedding dress in a resale shop. I think she paid $10.00.....all silk......lots and lots of laces and pearls.  So we decided to cut it into sections and ice dye it.  Here are some drying on her bushes......FABULOUS RESULTS!!!

 Our first day of ice-dyeing was fairly disappointing.....we still can't figure out why.....the wedding gown fabrics were wonderful, but none of these cottons and rayons had much color or interest.  

Of course that only meant we could spend another day enhancing them with paints and even redying some........stay tuned.....