Beginning your journey into the colorful world of ice dyeing presents one with no less than millions of possible color directions to go in. From single color splits to truly surprising combos that work every time, it is the literal business of WAXON Studio to think, study, and educate about the best ice dye color combinations! The title of this blog mentions the Procion brand by name, but almost everything in this post will be applicable to any and all fiber reactive dyes— no matter where you bought them. What Is Color Splitting With Procion Dyes In Ice Dyeing? One example of how a color sp ..read more

A pair of kids’ PJs that I snow dyed for this post (I actually did 2 pairs!) If you’ve followed WAXON for very long, you know we are obsessed with and constantly talking & teaching about ice dye. So, what is snow, but ice in a different form? Many people ask me if our ice dye kits can be used for snow dyeing, and the answer is YES! So bundle up and order yourself a scooper of some sort because we don’t want your hands to freeze when you’re out there gathering snow for your beautiful textile projects. What Is Snow Dyeing? Snow dyeing is when you use fiber reactive dyes to apply permanent c ..read more

Fiber reactive dyes (also called “reactive dyes,” “cold process dyes,” “FRDs”, “fiber dyes”, and “Procion* type dyes”) are one of the world’s best inventions for home dyers. They’re incredibly easy to use, affordable, easy to find online, not heat activated, and used in a heap of different applications. I love fiber reactive dyes so much, I’ve built my livelihood on them! Here at WAXON, we don’t use anything but fiber reactive dyes. In this post I’ll be detailing for you all the myriad methods and techniques you can use in the fiber reactive dyeing process to get great results at home with FRD ..read more

One of the most visually impressive tie-dye patterns ever is the mandala fold, but clear instructions can be a little bit elusive. You can do this as a beginner. The steps are logical, they just take some practice. Whether you dye your mandala with liquid dyes, create an ice dye mandala it with powdered dyes, or dip-dye it, the beautiful points and lines of a mandala fold are super visually impactful! Here at WAXON, we teach the mandala tie-dye as an “advanced” folding technique, but once you’ve got some practice, it’s really not that hard at all. I have found that through teaching it, my brai ..read more

Have you ever worked really, really hard at something that you fully believed in the value of doing? Of course you have! Putting in tons of effort to produce something you love is a natural human instinct and an experience most of us pursue at some point in our lives. As a textile dyeing teacher with years and years of experience, I felt the urge several years ago to compile all my knowledge and information into an online forum where students from all over the world could virtually step into my workshop. It took me so long to finally do it, though. Sure, running a small business is incredibly ..read more

What is Shibori? If you are looking for a general overview on Shibori dyeing and Shibori dyeing techniques, then you have come to the right place! Shibori – traditional Japanese tie-dye – is simple, easy, very pleasing to the eye, and can be a lot more varied than you think. With Shibori dyeing you clamp, bind, fold, or wrap fabric to achieve endless pattern variations. Shibori is great for creating custom hand-dyed fabrics and pre-sewn garments. Read on to discover the main Shibori patterns, the differences between Shibori and tie-dyeing, how to do Shibori at home wit ..read more

There are many reasons why, over the last 20 years or so of working with fiber reactive dyes, I’ve chosen to keep learning and investing in these amazing dyes instead of jumping ship and working with other types. Sure, I took a natural dye class here and there, and as a yarn lover I had to try dyeing wool with acid dyes, but the type of dyes that truly have my heart are fiber reactive dyes — aka, cold process dyes, Procion type dyes, MX, or what most people new to the scene just call “tie dye dyes.” They’re the best, they’re my favorite, and you’re going to love working with them. In this post ..read more

I tell my batik students all the time: there’s a reason I named my company WAXON, not wax off. Removing the wax from a batik can be the most frustrating part of it all… there’s so many things that can go wrong! You can work really hard to do all the right things and still have excess wax clinging to (or worse, still in) your fabric. It can be a huge mess, or even dangerous, if you don’t know what you’re doing. I’m going to talk you through my whole process, which I’ve tailored and tweaked over the years to suit my projects, my studio, my preferences and my needs. There’s a lot of information i ..read more

Lemme tell you about something that makes me feel really, really proud. At the very end of 2019 I was thinking about my goals for WAXON Studio in the upcoming year of 2020. I made a post on Instagram that said our goals were “kits, courses, and collaboration.” Obviously 2020 proved to all of us that we have absolutely no way of knowing what is and is not going to happen to us. We got it, universe. We are not the directors of the show. But still, somehow, before the pandemic locked us down I managed to do a few in person collaborations at the studio. I joined my friend Luna Dietrich’s online c ..read more

This is a question that I get all. the. time. Sometimes, it’s when folks walk in the door of our retail shop and start admiring certain things, and I say “oh, that’s ice dye,” and they have no idea what I’m talking about! Or, someone wants to book a class. They have done tie-dye before, but they aren’t really sure what ice dyeing is or what the differences between tie dye and ice dye are. My favorite is when people say, “you know, I usually don’t like the look of tie dye at all but I love this — what is it??” (Spoiler: it’s ice dye. You like ice dye. And I mean, who doesn’t??) So, in this post ..read more