Reclaiming Ugly Fabric

I've had a pile of ugly fabrics set aside to discharge, and I did that today. The fabrics were originally low-water dyed in different batches over a period of time. Some had been dry samples when they had the dye poured over them...and despite the fact that some dyers recommend using dry fabric instead of prewetted fabric (which I highly prefer) for low water immersion, everytime I do that I inevitably get undyed white spots on my fabric. So some of today's discharge batch had unsightly white spots to begin with.

And some of the pieces today had been low-water dyed with old stock solutions, and the colors were really washed out. These fabrics I overdyed recently, with dyes that were too intense, so I wanted to release some of the color.

I had maybe nine pieces of varying sizes and I prepared them for shibori, by either wrapping on poles or folding and clamping in one way or another.

The first piece, above, I totally love. The second and third are good enough to use somewhere. The rest I pitched out!

The moral of the tale is this: sometimes ugly fabric just cannot be saved. Adding more dye, or discharging something that makes you wince is simply not going to make it better. It's just a waste of dye or other resources!