fun with bleach

I tried somthing new this week. I've never enjoyed working with bleach*, never liked the fumes or what it can do on those occassions where things go awry. But I do like the interesting affects it can create when used to lighten darker fabrics.

*I should note, I'm oviously not using straight bleach. I found another dyer online who offered a recipe for mixing a bleach solution and then a separate bleach-stop solution. I know there's several ways of doing this, please do your own research and ALWAYS be careful with bleach. Work outside or our proper ventilation!

Bleach Bath #1:

This piece began with a very deep fuschia color, one that was intended to be closer to maroon at first attempt, but I was a little too eager to get started and went with too much a a deep pink. So then I rushed to overdye with a deep moss green. I kept going until it was so dark that I couldn't decide what to do next. It was at that point where I decided I needed to lighten the fabric overall and see what the results would be. That's when I tried the "bleach bath" for the first time. I overestimated the time it would take to lighten, b/c it's really hard to tell while it's still immersed in the released dyes and obvously darkened in color just from being wet. When it was lighter that I intended ( I should note that I don't generally work with very light colors!) I overdyed again with a another dark green. What is interesting about the affects of the bleach is that when it lightens the colors, it almost seems to softenthe overall dye patterns, so you see very subtle fades of color into each other.

Bleach Bath #2:
Same sort of deal here. two or three dyes in, I went too dark and decided to revert the colors abit with the bleach bath. I never can stop with just one dye, I alwsy feel the color needs more depth and variation, so I keep going, usually using two or three dyes to achieve the color range I'm looking for.