How to Discharge Instead of Washing Dishes and Other Important Shopping Events

Several of you've asked how I discharged the Bob Marley lyrics and it is very complicated but allow me to demonstrate:

First, you need these expensive supplies:

That's off-brand liquid dish gel with spot fighter (bleach) and a plastic bottle with a metal tip. Find the bottles in art supply stores where fabric, batik and dyeing supplies are sold or order online from Dharma Trading. Pour the liquid dish gel into the little bottle and write on your fabric. (Darker over-dyed fabrics work best or any dark commercially dyed fabrics work well too but only NATURAL fibers, ie cotton, silk)

Now for the fun part. Let it sit for a while flat and watch the chemical reaction! The dish gel will wick into the channels of the fabric. Leave it for as long or a little as you'd like and hold the fabric up to the light and check the bleaching from the backside to see your script or design materialize. I usually can't wait longer than 20 minutes or so. Rinse REAL good and wear GLOVES to maintain your dainty moisurized hands. Dry, press and Wahlaa!

NOT that you can really READ it but doesn't it look cool! And here are a few complicated designs I've played around with:(I can't stick to one topic or technique for long) Just LOOK what I found today while on my round of sales calls at The Hen House , a quilting, felting AND knitting shop! Combed dyed wool with flippin Angelina Fibers mixed in it! It Screamed my name so I bought 3 of the 6 hanks left:

Discharged Redemption Song

I've been jammin to the soothing "electro-bossa songbook of Bob Marley" and I keep singing the Amazonics rendition of his classic "Redemption Song" over in my head. I told you I was planning on discharging the lyrics with liquid dish detergent onto over-dyed cottons! I stared at it watching the chemical reaction for a good 30 minutes while dinner burned.After I rinsed, parts of lit up. Bob Marley would be 62 years old this Tuesday and I just found out after I posted this. Has Bob been singing to me to post his message? Don't laugh....I wonder if I could liven up the lyrics with stitching. I think this piece of cotton was bright orange with red undissolved dye specks before I overdyed with black...or was it red....I really should keep track of dye recipies in case I ever want to reproduce something.

Rough week. I think I'm gonna DYE

Nothing like a little dye-therapy to relieve the tension of working until 10pm every night this week. No worries, I'm close to quota and I still have a 3 whole business days left. Ew, that's stressful. Let's talk about dyeing silk.

I'm taking my favorite dye teacher, Marjie McWilliams http://www.fabricdesigns.com QuiltU silk dyeing class. The silk pieces are covered in plastic for the next 6 hours but you can bet they'll be posted by tonight. Since I'm not one to waste procion soup what with all those starving artists and all - I've stuffed and dumped silk velvets and silk gauze to see how they turn out. I'm overdyeing a few pieces of cotton and added salt to the left over dyes because I think I'm supposed to for cottons. Then, I plan to discharge with liquid dish soap and I think I'll write the words to Bob Marley's "Redemption Song" on the over-dyed cottons.

I'm so not excited about how my painted on and "blended" silk habotai lesson 1 turned out. My colors didn't really blend but looks like a pastely rainbow. This will be over-dyed next weekend:

This is how it's supposed to "blend" into orange and purples: