Ice Dyeing a Wool Sweater
Stay warm and colorful with this technique to revive a favorite wool sweater or dye up some wool felt to use in patches and appliques.
Shopping list:
Let's get started!
Mending Any Holes
You will need the Virgin Wool Felt, the felting pen, felting needles, scissors and your clean, if holey sweater.
Turn your sweater inside out and put the felting brush pad under the hole you want to patch. Arrange the fabric so it lays smooth and flat.
Cut a piece of the wool felt to cover the hole and about an inch all around. Use the felting needle pen and work out any of your feelings (carefully) as you needle the felt onto the sweater. Make sure to work all the way to the edges of the felt and really tack it on.
Remove the felting brush and turn everything right side out, put the brush back in place and work over the patched area from the right side. This will further attach the patch and push the fuzzy wool back to the inside of the garment.
Once all the holes have been patched with felt, it is time to prep for dyeing.
Dyeing the Sweater
Wool can hold 30-40% of its own weight in water, so we suggest pre-soaking it overnight to make sure it is fully wetted out to get the best results. Unlike cotton and other plant fibers, starting from a dry garment will result in dark patchy blobs of color instead of flowy colors.
Soak in warm water with just a few drops of Dharma Dyers Detergent to help as a wetting agent.
In a large pan/pot, sprinkle citric acid on the bottom of the pan.
Arrange your sweater (or material) on the pan as you like. We did semi-random scrunches so that the dye could flow in the fabric and hopefully create some interesting blending.
Sprinkle some dye in areas you might like some speckles or deeper color. We used Tobacco Leaf on the neckline and hem areas.
Cover the sweater with ice, make sure the sweater is totally covered — roughly equal volume of ice to the volume of the garment.
Sprinkle your dyes over the ice. For paler colors or more splitting, you could mix your dyes with some dyer's salt first. If you want a more even distribution than what you get with just a spoon, our dye shakers are very helpful. Then sprinkle a bit more citric acid over the top of everything.
Allow the ice to melt with the pan uncovered. If possible, let it melt on the stove or hot plate so you don't have to move anything at all.
When the ice is fully melted, leave the muck alone as much as possible. If some part of the sweater is uncovered you can poke it down a little to get some color on it but use a chopstick or something to minimally disturb things.
Cover the pan and turn on the heat to a medium setting. It is better to bring the pan up to a simmer gently to avoid things boiling.
Check it every 10 minutes or so until the heat is up to 185°F, then turn the heat down a bit and let it simmer at this temperature for 30-45 minutes. The water should start to clear as the dye exhausts.
Once the water is clear and it has been at temperature for at least 30 minutes, turn off the heat but leave the cover on and let things cool to room temperature.
Pour out the dye bath water and gently rinse the sweater with tepid or room temperature water. Avoid using really cold water, as you don't want to shock the wool and cause felting. If you wish, a little Eucalan Wool Wash can be used in the rinse.
To help get out excess water you can roll the sweater between some towels and gently press it. Lay flat to dry, gently block out the garment to help restore the shape.
Ice dyeing with acid dyes gives a soft low immersion effect that is a great background for embellishment. Carmen used wool yarns to add some floral bullion stitch flare to the neckline.
