Playing...

So, at the beginning of October, I was picking up supplies (dye stuff and things for my learning/teaching guest posting over at And Then We Set It On Fire), and there were a few other things I popped into my bag as well that I thought might be fun to play with - among them some discharge paste.

I'd never used it before but thought a piece of cloth like the above one would be perfect for an experiment. It was a double- fail dyeing experiment - failed in that it didn't turn out anything like what I was shooting for, and doubly failed in that it was a BORING fail. (Could there be a worse failure?)

So, discharge paste to the rescue and then ...

Ta dah!

In the pic above this one, I had already started using some discharge paste in the left hand corner - and liking the results, I went to town on it. I used a template that I had for assorted swirly curlicue things, and using them in whole and in part, I carefully discharged all over this piece.

I'm showing you the back because strangely, the effect was more obvious on the lighter side of the fabric than the darker side. I have no explanation for that, but as I conduct futher experiments with discharge paste, I'll let you know.

The two green bits are where I used the technique of adding some colour to the discharge paste so that it removes colour and puts it in at the same time.

I think this piece will be quite fun quilted up and embellished - and since the curlicues are so baroque, maybe I'll even go wild and add some beading, that will actually STAY on the quilt which would be a nice change as every single time I've beaded something so far, I end up taking them off.
So, that's my "play" for today!