The Bus
The Mini
The Bug
We've been working on a new, or new to us, way of using our stencils on t-shirts called discharging. Discharging is the process of removing dye (by destroying or altering the dye "chromophores") with various chemicals or bleach, resulting in pleasing patterns or designs through Shibori or Tie Dye methods, or by stamping, stenciling or block printing. Discharging can be incorporated into more complex designs by over-dyeing with other colors or combined with painting, printing or stenciling with opaque fabric paints.
We used a Clorox Bleach pen on our current t-shirts but would like to get the process to go a little faster and neater without risking damage to the fabric. Testing is always important because bleach will normally need to be weakened with water, applied and watched closely until the desired or maximum result is reached and then neutralized.
We found an excellent site called the Dharma Trading Co., http://www.dharmatrading.com/. They not only offer an enormous line of supplies, from fabric paint to blanks; they have great and easy to follow directions for every technique imaginable for fabrics.
We have ordered two products to try in our discharging process. The first being a bleach thickener and Bleach Stop to stop the action. Be looking for future pictures of our efforts!!!!
Here are some pictures of our current t-shirts; let us know what you think.
