Dyeing Soy Waxed Fabric

I decided to do a little experiment the other day.

soywaxexperiment

First I wanted to show you how I made those circles with a tin I found in a $1 bin at Target. I just had to add this after I received a comment from Jaime. We rarely eat anything or buy anything from a can so I had to purchase it. Several years ago when we were still buying canned goods I made a craft organizer from them. 

If you’re not familiar with soy wax batik, check out this post with my You Tube video.

containermarkerAnd this is how it looks when it’s done.

soywaxedfabric

Now was when the fun started. I started with the same three fiber reactive dyes: Forest Green, Raspberry, and Lemon Yellow.

The first piece I ice dyed.  The colors came out muted and kind of dreamy!

soywaxicetest

I really liked that, but wanted to see how painting with thickened dyes would look. If you’re not familiar with how to thickened dyes, I used the directions from Jane Dunnewold’s Art Cloth.

Here is my result. I tried to paint it so I could really compare it to the ice dyed piece. The thickened dyes were darker and didn’t blend as well as when ice dyed. Using less dye would have made them closer in color, but they still are pretty.

soywaxtest2

Then I did another piece with the same thickened dyes but a little different design.

soywaxtest1So what did I learn?  With ice dyeing the results are less predictable than painting with thickened dyes. However, you get a dreamy – can’t seem to get that word out of my mind this morning – feel. I liked both ways of dyeing after the soy wax was added to the fabric and will definitely do both again.

Now that I have these three lovely pieces I need to make something with them. Any suggestions? As always, thanks for dropping by.