Friday 24 April 2009

Bleaching

There was an interesting article in the latest edition of 'Quilter's Newsletter' about using fabric which you don't like or is out of date. One of the suggestions was to bleach it. The article showed a brown fabric which turned an attractive shade of marigold yellow after bleaching. Since I have been sewing strings to make yet another Mile a Minute quilt, and have found lots of dreary brown strings in the bottom of the box, I thought I would give it a go.
Here are the strings ready to be transformed.

And here they are after their transformation.

Rather similar, you'll agree. Apart from a few which have gone green, and others which have turned grey (both reactions which I think I would have emulated, had I been immersed in a bleach solution!) the majority of fabrics look the same. I suppose it's a matter of trial and error, and it was worth a go, but I think some of them will be finding themselves in my charity rags bag in the near future - there's only so much brown a girl can hide in a scrap quilt!

4 comments:

♪♪Melody♪♪ and Puddin said...

good to know how it turned out though

Joyce said...

You can always dye it a darker color.

Sew Create It - Jane said...

There are a couple of posts I've found in my blog reading this morning that talk about this. You might find them interesting...especially the block that is sewn to showcase the effect.

http://www.ohfransson.com/oh_fransson/2009/04/fabric-alteration-expiriment-1-bleach-discharge.html

http://www.ohfransson.com/oh_fransson/2009/04/fabric-alteration-experiment-2-overdye.html

http://upstatelisa.blogspot.com/2009/04/i-have-been-dyeing-to-try.html

Contented Caroline said...

Nice try Lynda - I'm sure you'll put those fabrics to good use - you could always do a strippy quilt with them and then applique over them in bright and colourful fabrics.