Dyeing to Discharge workshop by Carol Soderlund

Carol Soderlund teaches the best dyeing workshops in my not so humble opinion.  I was able to take her "Dyeing to Discharge" workshop at PRO Chemical and Dye in Fall River,  Massachusetts. I had been interested in learning discharge techniques but was concerned about the health affects. Carol is very knowledgeable about toxic affects, and emphasizes safety in every lesson.
We learned to discharge with bleach, thiox and deColourant, and to always wear a respirator while working with either chemical - whether inside or outside. With bleach, we wore masks while we were leaning over the buckets.  Bleach is always rinsed in water, and then an Anti-chlor solution rinse after that to stop the bleach from eating away at the fabric. When ironing thiox or DeColourant to discharge we always wore masks. Thickened Thiox and thiox with dye added (illumination) were used, and the effects were so inspiring!

Watching the bleach discharge and in anticipation of removing it at the right time.

Carol had us test about 12 colors of dyes and 6 blacks, and we sampled 27 different commercial fabrics for discharge. Our class produced some wonderful fabric by the end of the week. I'm posting a few photo's from the class. If you'd like to learn Discharging techniques, Carol is a thorough, organized and generous teacher, and sweet on top of all that! And PRO Chemical is an excellent place to take dye classes. It's what they do, and there is always an expert on the premises if there are any questions that the workshop instructor can't answer.


We had a great group of students who made lots of fabric. Here's some of our work pinned up for everyone to enjoy.

My fabrics