the mysteries of discharge

Last weekend I worked with discharge for two days: not nearly enough time to explore the vagaries of this process. The people who took the five-day class had more time to play around with both bleach and thiox (not simultaneously, of course) and discover what worked and what didn't. It is simply amazing how different the same fabric looks when discharged in bleach vs thiox or discharge paste. You never know what is under the black and how it will look when you remove the black dye. Shirt #1,below. Helene Davis is selling these and wanted to know how they discharged, so I tied it with rubber bands and threw it into a thiox bath at QSDS. It turned out so gorgeous that somebody bought it before it was even washed. Notice the pale beige of the discharged areas. Since I was out a shirt, Helene gave me another one in its stead, which I wore while it was black. Tonight,at home, bitten by the discharge bug, I decided to take a break from packing/organizing and throw the replacement black shirt into a thiox bath at home. I did a stitched resist and discovered that to see it, I have to wear the shirt inside out. BUT look! A lovely shade of light olive green, with black where the stitching was. Olive! The shirt was black. Same supplier as shirt #1. What excitement! Now I wish I had another one to try. You just never know what you are going to get - and it is always an adventure. But you do need to wear a respirator while you are working with the discharge agents.