On skirts, bleach printing and patterns..

I have been collecting ways and means of mark making and printing on to fabric to help me with the year three curriculum. I also have to admit that I adore printing on fabric. Anything to play with paint and fabric. Anyway, I digress.... I looked at block printing, tie dyeing and then I remembered that I saw this article on the Thread Magazine on printing with bleach.  A wonderfully easy way to change surface pattern and colour and the results are immediate and therefore most gratifying.
I used a pattern which I got from the this page from the Alabama Chanin site.

I cut a 6 piece wide skirt which in retrospect was the wrong pattern for this particular technique though I did want to try to get it to overlap on the seams which you can just about see in this picture.

The idea is to start with a basic stencil and strip the colour away on the knit to expose various other colours and with a dark knit, because so many other colours are used to achieve black, what you get is not predictable which for me is just fine!  I used my trusty silhouette machine to cut out the stencil and then used it to simply dab bleach that has been diluted onto the fabric.... the results are quite interesting.Once I finished I created the skirt and then added sequins and beads to it. Here is what I ended up with ....

I thought I would start the girls off with a t shirt and then move onto other more interesting things...I hope they enjoy this as much as I do!