Ice dyeing is one of the easiest ways to dye your own fabrics.  It works well with pieces up to a metre or so.  Do make sure that you use cotton though – any polyester in the content will not dye.

Put at its simplest, you soda soak your (well washed) fabric, pop it on a cake cooling rack over a cat litter tray (yes, you read that right!  Cat litter trays will become your new best friend!), cover it with ice or snow, sprinkle some dry Procion Dye powder over the ice and go off and forget about it!

After a good few hours you will see that all the ice has melted and drawn the dye through the fabric – and just look at the magic that has happened whilst you have been away.  Never a disappointing result!

Ice Dyeing – next stage

So – what is the final fabric going to look like?  Gorgeous!  I’ll tell you that for free!  But you just have to open that fabric out (Don’t forget to wash all the loose dye out) and have a look!  I put two half metre pieces in and this is what I got …………………….

Fabric dyed using ice dyeing technique

Second Fabric dyed using ice dyeing technique

If you want to try this technique for yourself, there is a tutorial available – here