The Colors of Snow

After a couple of wimpy winters, we are back to the real thing--with a reasonable amount of snow and enough cold temperatures to keep it around for at least a bit.  I wasn't going to bore you with my snow dyeing adventures this year. My first round from a deep snow a couple of weeks ago yielded the usual results:

And then we had three or four inches last week and I almost didn't even try because the snow was very light and dry.  The first one I ironed was very nice but fairly monochromatic and I should have learned by now that I need contrast to get the best effects-and the blue I dripped by mistake on the bottom right side wasn't enough contrast:

The blue mixed with black was more exciting:

and then there was the jewel!

This has lots of the chrystally, petally texture that I associate with the most successful snow dyes and the colors are magical.  Unlike my usual technique, which involves pouring already mixed dye concentrate on the snow, this time I sprinkled dye powder on the snow.  Now there are problems with this because the  dangerous time when working with dyes is when they are in powder form--and sprinkling powder on the snow does tend to get more powder in the air than I like.  I may try using the two colors--sapphire blue and plum--in concentrate form and see if it is the colors and not the technique that produced these results.  Of course, the quality of the snow is another variable and that I will not be able to reproduce.