Aaron has moving into a beautiful old apartment. He has just about everything he needs, but was missing some curtains for his bedroom. I bought some fabric to make curtains for him. The fabric was plain green (unknown fibre content, but probably a poly cotton) and I thought about how to embellish it. After walking by our silver maple tree many times and admiring the falling leaves I decided to try discharging.
Discharging is a process of releasing some of the dye already in fabric. I used a 1:2, bleach water solution, but found that was not strong enough for this fabric so went to a 1:1 ratio.
I placed the silver maple leaves on a sample strip of fabric.
I decided to add some cedar branches too. I sprayed on the bleach solution and waited ten minutes. To neutralize the bleach I dipped the cloth into 4 litres of water with 3 tablespoons of sodium metabisulfite. I found this wasn't as bleached (discharged) as I would have liked so I decided to strengthen the bleach solution and allow more time.
I laid out the two pieces of material that would become Aaron's curtains on our deck. I placed the leaves and branches on in a pleasing arrangement. Of course the wind started to get up and a few of the leaves wanted to blow away. I had to work quickly!
I sprayed on the 1:1 bleach water solution and waited ten minutes. I still wasn't happy with the amount of discharging, so I got undiluted bleach and sprayed it on as well, and waited another ten minutes.
Voila. Here is the result. As the material was not 100% cotton the discharge was not as spectacular as I wanted. Here it is.
Discharging is a process of releasing some of the dye already in fabric. I used a 1:2, bleach water solution, but found that was not strong enough for this fabric so went to a 1:1 ratio.
I placed the silver maple leaves on a sample strip of fabric.
I decided to add some cedar branches too. I sprayed on the bleach solution and waited ten minutes. To neutralize the bleach I dipped the cloth into 4 litres of water with 3 tablespoons of sodium metabisulfite. I found this wasn't as bleached (discharged) as I would have liked so I decided to strengthen the bleach solution and allow more time.
I laid out the two pieces of material that would become Aaron's curtains on our deck. I placed the leaves and branches on in a pleasing arrangement. Of course the wind started to get up and a few of the leaves wanted to blow away. I had to work quickly!
I sprayed on the 1:1 bleach water solution and waited ten minutes. I still wasn't happy with the amount of discharging, so I got undiluted bleach and sprayed it on as well, and waited another ten minutes.
Voila. Here is the result. As the material was not 100% cotton the discharge was not as spectacular as I wanted. Here it is.
I decided to further embellish this material before I finished sewing the casing and hem. I will get pics of the continuation in the next post.
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