Dye Happy 6 Discharge

Today was the last day of my 6-part Dye Happy class, and the topic was Discharge, or as some students called it, "undyeing fabric". As is often the case with classes that extend over a 6-month period, life happens and students disappear. But here you can see the die/dye-hards, who came to virtually every class, including the last one.

Left to right: Heather, Tatiana, me, Barb, Sylvia, Susan, Helen, Kirsten, Sandra, David

Fortunately it was a warm (by Ottawa standards) sunny day, and we were able to put the pails of bleach solution and anti-chlor solution out the back door of the community centre to keep the fumes out of the classroom. Speaking of anti-chlor, please please please use a bleach-neutralizing agent to neutralize any bleach that might remain in the fabric in order to avoid damage to the fabric over time. Also, it is a myth that vinegar neutralizes bleach; in fact the mixing of vinegar with bleach can result in an even more noxious chemical than bleach itself.

Some really cool pieces resulted, like Susan's T-shirt (which started out as a plain black T-shirt) and was fan-folded, twisted and bound.

Note, the sky was just about as blue today in Ottawa as in the California desert (see my March 17 post titled "Inspiration from California".

Here are some other knock-out pieces!

These two are just dyeing too happily!!

Students also brought some of their finished dye-painted pieces from our last class.
Tatiana's tulips:

Susan's spiral design, already quilted and finished.

Heather's tree and tulips, with an interesting irregular shape, also finished and ready for the Ottawa Valley Quilt show.

David's boat, trimmed to an oval, and ready to be placed into a larger piece.

Although developing this class was a lot of work, it was definitely worth it, and I am going to miss the class and this group. If this blog has been heavily weighted toward the subject of dyeing, that is because I've spent the last 9 months developing and teaching the class. Now I hope to turn to making some art quilts in between my teaching engagements and get to work on developing my new "Threads: Uncommon & Unforgettable" class, which will be offered at the Haliburton School of the Arts during the first week of August. The Art Quilt will be offered there the last week of July.