Variety of Techniques - Week 6

So far in these sessions we have added all kinds of techniques to fabrics and at various stages.

Today, We are doing some subtraction.

Yep....discharge!

There are some products on the market which will remove color from fabric. And at least one that will remove the color and leave another!

But today we are going old school....bleach.

I've removed color from fabric using bleach with a bleach pen, bleach gel, etc.

This following is a combination of clamping and bleaching.

Safety Warning:  This process requires a well ventilated area!! Bleach fumes are not pleasant and not healthy!  If you can't get a ventilated area, you should wear a respirator mask with the appropriate filters.

Here is a photo of one of the pieces of hand-dyed fabric I did a while ago.  LOTS of clothespins and different types of clothespins.  I don't have this piece any longer but I liked how it shows up the pins on the red background.

Here is the same use of clothespins on a Kona black with bleach.  Love the pattern it produces.

This piece was folded like an accordion and clamped with Twixit clips.  The ones sold in various sizes for closing all kinds of bags and packages (think bread, chips, nuts, etc.)

All these discharge pieces were submerged in bleach for a certain amount of time (it is all relative to the effect you want really) Just remember....it will probably keep discharging just a bit more when you decide it is ready.  It is too far before you know it! In other words, you don't want to walk off and leave it unwatched. All these pieces were also submerged in an anti-chlor solution immediately after the beach bath.  Then rinsed several times, then washed, rinsed and ironed.  It is very important to use the anti-chlorine step to stop the bleach and more rinsing doesn't hurt at all either.

Doing this project made me want to try all kinds of other "clamps"!  What about large paper clips/ or rows of varying sizes of those black binder clips?  Or even those big clamps with the plastic tips...takes Andre the Giant to open them but it would make a cool effect!  Talk about a resist!!

I hope these inspire you to try other types of "clamps" and see what creative images you can acquire!

Kelly L Hendrickson

New Piece--Quilter Beth

I'm sorry my post is SO late, but I have been gone most of the month. I did have time to start my piece using this month's technique today after I got home. Let me tell you what I have done so far.

I started by dipping my muslin into the mixture of glue and water, and let it dry overnight. I decided I wanted my piece to finish a bit flatter, so I did iron it a little using a press cloth. I left some of the wrinkles in it, but overall it is fairly flat.

I did want some texture in the piece, so I decided I would use some of my stash "stuff" to accomplish this. I decided to use blue sinamay ribbon, some torn up (used) dryer sheets, and a flattened silk rod to start with. (Later, I will be covering everything with gesso so I can paint the piece. The blue of the ribbon won't matter if the color isn't covered 100 percent with the gesso, since I'm planning on painting everything with shades of blue anyway.)

Here is some of my "stuff." In this picture, I'm backing it all with Misty Fuse using a couple of non-stick sheets as pressing cloths.

I added some Misty Fuse-backed linen cut into triangles.

The last thing I did today was add some machine stitching--some satin-stitched-curvy lines and some free-motion circles. I thought this might add some interesting variation in color when the paint sinks into the stitching.

I am going to add some hand stitches with some Size 10 cotton crochet thread and try to get it painted with gesso before I head to bed tonight. That way, I can start the "real" painting tomorrow. Hopefully, I'll have an update in the next day or two.

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Soft Scrub Experiment

I have been wanting to try Soft Scrub as a discharge agent and this month gave me a good reason to finally get around to it.  I also have been wanting to try discharging on a patchwork piece of fabric.  I like the idea of the material being different but the discharge pattern going across the different fabrics to uniet them.  



I used a block leftover from this quilt.

And here are my results. 

I am underwhelmed.  It is much more subtle than I would have gotten from either bleach or Decolourant.  This actually shows two attempts. The first time I stamped the dry fabric and let it sit for about 15 minutes before washing it out with water.  I could see very little change. So I stamped the wet fabric again and let it sit for about 30 minutes.  Still when I washed it out, there did not seem to be much change.  To neutralize the bleach, I put the fabric in hydrogen peroxide--more expensive than anti-clor but still not expensive and I had it on hand--and let it sit for a couple of hours.

Here are two detail shots.  I do plan to use the same stamp with some thickened dye before calling the block finished.

Sometimes A Do-Over

is a really good idea.

These are the same three pieces that I was unimpressed with on Friday.

I mixed up a flour and water resist, let it dry, and then sprayed on some bleach.

I think I might have saved myself the trouble of the resist and just lightly sprayed them.  But I really like these.

Experimenting with Bleach

First the successes.  Seeing the interesting results obtained with resists in the previous posts (especially the one with the flour -- that's right outta my playbook)  I decided to get out my old smocking pleater and pleat up some fabric for discharge.  It was fun because I didn't care whether it was on grain (a must for hand smocking) or even if I "popped" some of my pleats.  

 I used some Egyptian cotton that I keep around because with deColourant it discharges to white. The top two were folded in half, then pleated and dipped in a diluted bleach solution.  I really like the patterning, but I'm not crazy about the color.  The bottom one was pleated in a single layer and I brushed on deColourant, then hit it with the hair dryer.  Nothing happened.  So I moved downstairs and hit it with my steam iron and got the wonderful stripey effect.

I know I've been AWOL a lot lately from the blog world.  I haven't even done any snow dyeing because my personal life is crazy busy these days.  Of course, there hasn't been much snow, but it snowed last night, so I thought, "Snow discharge!"  I sprayed full strength bleach over the top of the snow packed on three different  scrunched-up fabrics.

 This was the Egyptian cotton.  Blah.  I like the pleated stuff better -- I'm thinking I may have to mix up some flour and water and re-do it.

 This was some commercial purple batik that I must have really liked because I have a bunch of it in my stash.  I will probably over-dye it.  Meh.

This was Kona black.  Again -- not thrilled.  I'm thinking another resist (and bleach or deColourant).  I wasn't crazy about previous experiments with deColourant and resists, so I suppose it's worth a try with bleach.  And I've decided that snow is better reserved for dyeing.  

Jumping on the bandwagon...

I started with a piece of black, heavy weight jersey cotton, marked it with chalk and then loosely pulled some threads through the markings. (You'll note that I decided not to do the circles on the top left hand-side after all.)

Once I pulled the thread tight I used a small sized squeeze bottle of bleach to apply bleach along the pulled areas, and sprinkled drops randomly over the blank area.  When completed, the result was:

Which I'm rather pleased with.

Bleach Discharge--Quilter Beth

I am hoping to do some bleach discharge later in the month; but, in the meantime, I'd like to share some I did a little while ago.

I started with some pieces using bleach in a spray bottle. If you would want to do this, I suggest you do it outside (which I did--even though the temperature was in the 30s). You MUST HAVE good ventilation when working with bleach and anti-chlor. I thought the pieces turned out interesting. I'll be doing more of them.

This is what I started with...some string and two keys strewn onto my fabric.

I used straight bleach sprayed from a spray bottle, and this is what I got... 

After I sprayed the fabric with bleach, I let it sit a little while (until the color was a bit darker than I wanted). Then I removed the objects from the fabric and put the fabric into an anti-chlor solution (for five minutes) to stop the discharge of the dye. I waited a bit too long on this particular piece. I think it turned out a little too light. What I think I'll do with it is overdye it with a color. The anti-chlor solution I used was 1 teaspoon of anti-chlor to 2 1/2 gallons of water. I rinsed the fabric in cold water after the anti-chlor bath. I followed this same procedure for all of these pieces.

This is what turned out when I used "Jet Black" fabric from Blank. The color is a beautiful rusty/reddish brown. The picture doesn't do the color justice. On this piece, I again used the keys, some jute, and three bottle caps. 

On this piece, I sprayed bubble wrap with the bleach. Then I placed the fabric face down on the bubble wrap and lightly pressed the fabric into it with my gloved hands. After that, I put the fabric on the table, added some string and a glove and lightly spritzed the whole piece with the bleach. I let it sit for just a little bit before putting it into the anti-chlor solution. I like the depth in this piece.

I have lots of ideas about things I can use to make more of this unique fabric. It was great fun. Why don't you give it a try?

A couple of discharge projects.

I am hoping to work on some discharge projects this weekend but till then I thought I would show you a couple of wall hangings I have. They are not "high ART" but I have them hanging in my office and actually get more comments on them than I do on my more sophisticated pieces.

 

This is a piece of black cotton from Joann's that I brushed with Decolourant to see what would happen.  I know it is Decolourant because when I used bleach, the fabric discharged to brown rather than this grey.  To integrated the two colors, I used some embroidery floss to quilt outline the discharged area.  I was experimenting with copper wire and affixing beach stones.

In this piece I got a bit more adventurous and did the quilting with the embroidery thread before I discharged the material.  If you look in the discharged areas you can see the added texture I got from discharging it after quilting.

Are you familiar with Decolourant?  Here is the product page with how-to's for painting, printing, stamping, screening, and spraying with Decolourant.  I'll be doing some of that this weekend!

Shibori--Discharge Dyeing

I decided to do a bit more discharge shibori before I put all my supplies away. This piece is a bit different from the others I posted. I loosely rolled my black fabric (Blank Textiles 100% cotton) onto a piece of nylon string (on the diagonal). Then I scrunched it up as tight as I could and tied the string together to keep its shape. (I ended up having to do this twice; the first time, only half of the fabric had discharged.) I think it looks like some kind of animal skin.

 This is what it looked like before the bleach bath.

I found a great resource for discharge dyeing. If you are interested, check out www.threadsmagazine.com/item/3720/dyeing-with-bleach.

Shibori Using a Bleach Bath-Quilter Beth

I was anxious to get started with this month's technique, so while I'm waiting on my ProChem order to arrive I thought I would try some shibori using a bleach bath to discharge the fabric. I used information from Sara Newberg King's book "Dye & Discharge." It was great fun, and I got some beautiful pieces of fabric. (I also did some pieces where I sprayed the bleach onto the fabric; those pics are on my personal blog.)

I did all of this work outside (even though it was in the 30s today). You MUST HAVE good ventilation when dealing with the bleach solution and the anti-chlor I used.

I used 2", 3", and 4" PVC poles. These sizes are nice, because they don't take up much room to store. They all nestle inside each other.

This is what my pole looked like when it was wrapped. They all virtually looked the same, so I only took one picture of that. I put the fabric on the diagonal each time. 

After wrapping the pole with my fabric, I placed it in the bleach bath. This is what that looks like. I used 1 cup of bleach to 1 gallon of hot water. I left the fabric in this solution until the color was just a bit darker than what I wanted. (The fabric continues to discharge even after you take it out of the bleach bath. That happens until you put it into the anti-chlor bath, which is the next step.) Some of the fabric changed color right away; some took longer.

This is one of the poles in the anti-chlor bath. (The scrunched up fabric is at the bottom of the pole. (The dye has colored the anti-chor bath so you can't see the fabric.) The anti-chlor stops the discharge action of the bleach. I used 1 teaspoon of anti-chlor to 2 1/2 gallons of hot water. I left the fabric in this bath for five minutes stirring occasionally. After the anti-chlor bath, I put the fabric into clear water to rinse it and then removed it from the pole. 

This is the piece I wrapped onto the 4" pole. I can't tell you much about this fabric, because I picked it up at a yard sale. All the fabric I used started as solid black fabric. I just love the organic-looking nature of these pieces. 

I wrapped this fabric on the 2" pole. This is fabric I had in my stash, so I can tell you more about it. It is 100% cotton "Jet Black" fabric from Blank. Isn't the rusty/reddish brown gorgeous! You can click on this picture (and then click on it again) to get a closer look. (My picture turned out a bit further away than I had planned.) In the book I was using as a resource, Sara Newberg King says, "If you discover a rich brown under a black fabric, you may want to head back to the store to buy more." I'm thinking she would LOVE this color. (I have ordered another bolt!)

This piece is also of unknown origin. I wrapped it on the 3" pole. It is so interesting how different the designs in each section of this piece are. Even the areas where the black is mostly gone have subtle variations in color and design. I think some of the designs look like feathers.

This last piece is another yard sale find. This was the last piece, so I thought I'd try something new. I gathered, twisted, and tied "fingers" of fabric with string and rubber bands to create the circles on part of the fabric. On the bottom left you can see where I used clothespins and a metal clip to hold the fabric that I accordian pleated.

This is what the fabric looked like before I put it into the bleach bath. As you can see, I didn't use a pole for this one.

I'm really pleased with how the fabrics turned out. I definitely will be doing more of this! I have lots of other ideas for designs. Now it is your turn...