Discharge Dyeing

Discharge Dyeing

This process involves removing (discharging) color from fabric by two methods that we employed. One method uses a Gel Bleach Pen and the second method uses Soft Scrub, a cleaning product containing bleach. Both need to be shaken for a better, more even, consistency. They each had its pluses and minuses but both were interesting to use


Discharge Dyeing - Donnie
This is my discharge dyeing piece called "nine lives". Can you tell that Donnie is a cat lover?!

Donnie

Discharge Dyeing - Sue
Sue used different foam shapes that she stamped on to the fabric to remove the color and got an interesting mottled effect. It's always exciting to see the results from this process.

Sue

Discharge Dyeing - Annette
Annette used Soft Scrub to remove the color from her blue fabric and since the Soft Scrub is grainy and thicker than the gel pen, it can have some dimension, which Annette chose to highlight with embroidery to give her shapes more form and substance.


Annette

Discharge Dyeing  - Claire

This technique produced mixed results for me. This was the first attempt at discharging the color from fabric and I considered it "play", where I used a couple of stencils and hand drew a spiral and hand wrote the word "art". When I carefully planned a design for what I thought would be my finished piece, I couldn't get the fabric to discharge, despite three repeated attempts. I used the same Gel Bleach Pen, the same Soft Scrub and more importantly, the very same fabric (a Kaufman Kona Black), but it didn't work. I shook the containers to make sure the bleach was well distributed, but to no avail. So I went back to my "play" piece and cut it apart and sashed the individual pieces to make a new design. In the end I like how it turned out, but wonder why my repeated attempts didn't work. More work is needed with this technique for me.

 

                                                                                  Claire

Discharge Dyeing - Joyce
I had picked up a bag of small game pieces at the Dollar Store and decided to build my discharge dyeing around those items. The hopscotch and tic-tac-toe games are done with the bleach pen. Numbers are painted, using Smooch. The writing is done with Soft Scrub in small squeeze bottles with metal tips. Soft Scrub applied to rubber stamps made the squiggles. Dice had holes for attaching with thread, while other game pieces were fastened with gel medium. I did a little quilting before adding game pieces and edges are finished with both a heavy ribbon and a multi-color yarn, couched on over the ribbon.

                                                                                  Joyce

Discharge Dyeing - Kathleen
Kathleen had good control of the Gel Bleach Pen and the Soft Scrub to enable her to get good definition on her designs. These products are not so easily controlled but when it's possible, designs come out cleaner, clearer and more distinct. Her choice of border fabric echoes the color that resulted from the bleaching process.

                                                                                 Kathleen