Ice Dyeing with Wool and Fiber Reactive Dye

Let’s get started!

Our first step is to fully secure your skeins of yarn to make sure that they won’t get snarled up during the dyeing process. Tie them with some scrap yarn in at least four places around the skein. Alternatively, we have found that our reusable zip ties are great for this job! You can skip this step if you’re working with fabric.

Pre-wash:

Whenever starting out with any project - it’s a great idea to pre-wash your fibers with a little Dharma Dyer’s Detergent. This makes sure you’re working with a nice clean canvas for your art! We pre-washed our yarn with a small dollop of the detergent and rinsed out in cold water and set the fibers aside.

Pro-tip: Some yarns take a while to fully wet out so it is ok to do this overnight and have your yarn ready the next day.

They’re Soaking In It!

Now we will mix up our soaking solution - we dissolved 2 tablespoons of citric acid per quart of water (2 TBSP per 32 oz.) and soaked the skeins of yarn in this mix.

They were left to soak for about 5 minutes - taking care to ensure that the fibers were fully soaked in the solution before proceeding. If you’re working with a very tightly spun yarn, you may find it needs to soak a little longer.

Why so Strong? We opted to use a strong solution of citric acid because the ice in this process will be diluting this solution as it melts.

Now, we transfer our soaked skeins into a container that can hold our ice and dye. For all our yarns we opted to layer as follows: Yarn, Ice, Dye. For experienced ice dyers this process is called “Dyeing in the Muck with Dye Over Ice (DOI)”. Now we let the ice do the work - melting and creating color as it goes. Once all your ice has melted, set a timer to let your skeins sit in the dyewater for anywhere from 12 hours to 24 hours.

Side Note: Trust the Process

In many cases the result you may have after the ice melts may seem less than desirable. Don’t despair - trust the process and keep going! Skeins that may look dull and monotone in color, can actually really blossom into beauties once they have had a chance to steam in the microwave.

You may also notice that some fibers may take the dye differently. In our experiments you will see that our Superwash Merino Zebra yarn really absorbed the color strongly where our regular Merino gave us more of a pastel effect. This has everything to do with the fibers and how they have been treated. Superwash tends to make the dye absorb easier to the skein, so you may find you’ll get different results depending on what you’re working with.

Remember results will vary and it is near impossible to get repeatable results with the ice dye technique.

Time’s Up!

Once you have let your skeins sit for 12 to 24 hours, now is the time to transfer them to a microwave safe container to apply heat to them. It’s ideal to pick a container that has a lid or you can cover it with plastic wrap - be sure to leave a space or hole to allow steam to escape while your yarn cooks! If you are using the same container you ice dyed in, you may want to opt to pour out a little of the dye water to help the fiber heat up faster in your container.

We also opted to sprinkle one teaspoon of citric acid on top of the skeins before we microwaved them to help give a little extra oomph to help the dye to stick.

Microwave on high for about 2 min. Important: You may need less time or need to pause the heat so your fibers don’t get too steamy. You may find that a couple 2-4 minute bursts are what is needed to get the job done. The goal is to see steam building up in your container, but not heat it so intensely that things dry out or burn. For safety’s sake - please never walk away from the microwave!

Let it Rest

Try your best to not be tempted to rinse out your wool right away! It’s really best to let your wool sit to cool down to room temperature before you rinse out in cold, running water. Then, follow up with a second wash in cool water with a little Dharma Dyer’s Detergent to get any leftover dye out of your fibers. Once dry, you’re ready to display your lovely results!

Malabrigo Merino Worsted Yarn / #203 Phoenix Flame

Superwash Merino Zebra DK / #203 Phoenix Flame

Superwash Merino Zebra DK / #202 Alchemist

Malabrigo Merino Worsted Yarn / #202 Alchemist

Superwash Merino Zebra DK / #205 Wild Thing

Malabrigo Merino Worsted Yarn / #205 Wild Thing