Discharge experiments

Thiox has entered my life, thiox discharge paste that is lest you think something else. I couldn't get my head around the information that I read on-line and in numerous books but Dear Rayna gave me a simple recipe and if I had followed it the first time, well, I needed a break from the broiling garage, 95 yesterday and even standing directly in front of the portable AC I wilted. I assumed, incorrectly, that if I put the fabric with the discharge paste on it under plastic that it would remain damp enough until I could steam it, after all I do that  with DSP. Wrong. The discharge paste only worked in small areas where it was heavily applied; the brownish/tan areas evident in a few of the examples are from the first go-around. The fabric was rewashed and a new batch of discharge was mixed up and rather than take a chance that it wouldn't work again I erroneously doubled the amount of thiox. Over-kill isn't necessary in this instance. The steaming worked fast and, what? I was expecting white or off-white due to the fact that the few bits that discharged on the first experiment had gone white(ish). A yellow cast? Not too thrilled about that but okay, maybe the discharge paste will improve some Kona muslin that was part of a parfait batch; I'm not impressed with the Kona, very lackluster. Stripes are interesting, aren't they? There was a little bit of discharge paste left so I sponged some onto a fabric that had laughed at bleach; who knew that bleach doesn't work on all fabrics? The Thiox worked but the discharged color is a green/grey, not particularly appealing. Around 12:30am I tossed the fabric into the washer and watched some TV. Some sort of documentary about the Rolling Stones was on Jimmy Fallon, is that the guys name? He follows Leno, anyway during a break I pulled the fabric out of the washer and surprise, the yellow cast from the Thiox was nearly gone and only white, tan, and little yellow remained. My guess is that only a little Thiox is necessary in order for the discharge to work. The fabric is from Dharma, they claim that it will discharge and it does. The recipe is:  1/2 tsp thiox and 1 tsp of soda ash to 1/2 cup print paste. Dissolve the thiox in a bit of hot water first; ditto with the soda ash and add them to the print paste. (apply to fabric and immediately steam or iron; from what I understand the iron should hover just above the fabric, it's the steam that activates the discharge paste. I steamed the fabric for about 10 minutes.) It's good to use a Darth Vader mask, though, I didn't! Claustrophobic here, I did use a dust mask and might break down and use the DV one. I did, however, open the doors in the garage and pray to the Dyeing Gods for good ventilation. I use Rayna's print paste recipe from her stellar book, "Create your own hand-printed cloth." Info about Thiox can be found here:

Odd dreams last night, from the Thiox or from watching a film about the Stones when they were in exile living in France? In any case, I'm in love with thiox and am hoping that the temps allow me to experiment some more. The weather report is that by this last year there had already been 5 days of 100+ temps and so far we've only hit 98 twice. Gosh, like I can tell the difference!

Quote: You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you need. Rolling Stones