Discharged fabric

Liz dropped me a message asking about a piece of fabric she spotted in one of my photos.
This little piece of pink was calling her name:

I had to laugh when I realized what fabric she was asking about because that piece of fabric one of the few pieces where I can’t just pull it out, copy selvedge information down, and pass along the details.  You see, that piece of fabric is altered.  In fact, that may just be the piece of fabric that started my whole journey into discharging (bleaching) and dyeing fabric.

As some of you online fabric shoppers will know, it occasionally happens that you order a piece of fabric that you think is pink, and it arrives PINK.  It is just an unavoidable aspect of online shopping; it is really difficult to capture the color accurately and have it display on everyone’s monitor accurately (especially since most people are like me, with un-fancy, un-calibrated monitors).   I think this can particularly be a problem with reds, pinks, and oranges.

As a side note: this is part of the reason that I love Flickr and craft blogs, I get to see fabrics in use, right next to fabrics I know the true color of—I often find myself saying “oh, that’s what color that is!” 

Back to our story: once upon a time, I ordered a print called “Peek-a-boo” by Amy Bradley Designs for Moda.  I thought it was pink.  It arrived PINK.  Because the fabric was on sale and I needed a pink quilt back, I had ordered four yards of it.  Well, I now had four yards of the most obnoxiously, aggressively PINK fabric I had ever seen.

Here’s a picture of the fabric in its altered state next to a piece of it that is its original color, along with some other fabrics you might know the true color of (to help you calibrate your eyeballs):

I toyed with the idea of using the wrong side of the fabric in my quilt, but then decided even that was too PINK, so I picked another piece of fabric for my quilt back and the PINK fabric was left to languish in my stash.  It sat and sat and sat.   Then, one day, I decided that I should try to bleach the fabric.  I figured that if worse came to worst, I would have to throw the fabric out and then at least it wouldn’t have to look at it anymore.  So I filled up a five-gallon bucket with warm water, added two cups of bleach, and stuck the pink fabric in there.  After a 20 minute soak, I dumped the fabric and the bleach bath into the washer and washed the fabric out.  [I’m guessing about the time frame here, and please note I should have used Anti-chlor or Bleach-Stop to stop the bleach, but I didn’t know any better. You can buy Anti-chlor or Bleach-Stop wherever dye is sold.] 

So, what Liz spotted on my shelf is the discharged version of that fabric.  And I agree, it is quite lovely.  I’m down to slightly less than one yard of it (from the original four).  Liz, if you want to buy the fabric from me, shoot me an email (link in the upper right corner).  Or, look for “Peek-a-boo” by Amy Bradley Designs for Moda and get your bleach and Anti-chlor ready!