So what have we been doing? 2

Tricia has also been discharge dyeing. This process involves the  use of media, in this case bleach, to remove some of the dye in a fabric, selectively, to make patterns. It has a lot in common with shibori techniques, except that the process is removing dye that is already there, rather than adding it.

 Tricia chose to use black fabric for her experiments, and as you can see, she had quite different results from different fabrics.

 This one was a cotton voile, which is why it is quite sheer, hanging on the line.

  

Her next step was to neutralise the bleach using a proprietary agent - Bleach stop or Antichlor. It's important to do that step, because washing is not enough to remove all the bleach, and it continues to work on the fibres, eventually affecting the integrity of the fabric.