Discharge Monday

Monday was discharge day. Discharge with bleach. I used several blacks manufactured by different companies, my hand dyed fabric and commercial batiks. I wanted to see if there were any differences with the blacks and how the batiks and hand dyes would bleach out. I also used bleach thickener on some.

Below are some of my samples.

The top fabric was shiboried with a 50% bleach and 50% water solution on a Robert Kaufman black fabric. The bottom was taped with pieces of masking tape and sprayed with the 50/50 bleach solution using Timeless Treasures black fabric, this came out a peachy/cream color that I really like.

The left fabric was a hand dyed fabric that started out a very dark blue/green. I used a cut-out of a tree branch from a stencil I carved for another project and sprayed 50/50 bleach, water solution. The results really surprised me. The right was a hand dyed fabric that started as a red/violet. I used 2 TBS bleach thickener and 1/4 c of bleach and 1/8 c water, and sponged with a couple different pieces of foam sponges.

The left fabric was twisted in a swirl and squirted 50/50 bleach and water solution in the folds. This was an unknown black batik. The right was a Gee's Bend dark red solid that I shiboried with a 50/50 bleach solution. Another real favorite.

The left was a hand dyed fabric I squirted with yellow and blue dyes and swished around. I used a purchased stencil on it with thickened bleach. The right was a blue/green hand dyed fabric that I used a Clorox bleach pen on for water ripples.

These are commercial batiks that I used purchased stencils with bleach thickener.

After the fabrics bleached to the colors I wanted I rinsed in water, then put in Anti-Chlor solution for about 15 minutes, rinsed again and then machine washed and ironed.

I had a great time experimenting with this process and will do again later this summer.

Fluttering Leaves Continued

I started the quilting on my sun printed leaves quilt. I outlined around each stem and leaf, then continued outline quilting each section.

I then embroidered a stem stitch for the veins in each leaf with hand dyed silk embroidery floss.

I finished the edges with a thin binding using one of the stem fabrics.

Fluttering Leaves

I did some sun printing with seta color paints last summer, and have finally started working with one of the fabrics.

I mixed varying shades of oranges and painted them on a fat quarter of fabric. I then layed down various sizes of maple leaves and the little helicopter seed pods, let dry in the sun then removed the leaves and pods.

I then hand-dyed fabrics with numerous blue/orange combinations to make stems. These I fused and zigzag applique.

I outlined each leaf with Fabrico markers to give more definition to the leaves.

Come back to check out the quilting and finishing touches.