Rust Dyeing Progress

Last weekend I unwrapped my pie and muffin pans to see what I got. Things had dried out a bit too much--the layers didn't allow the rain to get inside. Some things were quite wet and some not. Areas in direct contact with the rusty metal were picking up nice color but the other areas are too bare. The top photo is from one of the stacks of pie tins and below is the muffin tins.

I rewrapped them in a different configuration, stacked them back up in the back yard, and plan to water more often this week.

Best Laid Plans

Well, the weekend didn't go quite as planned. Not that it was bad, just a bit more spontaneous.

I did manage to do something on each of my finishing projects. I found iron-on interfacing in my stash for the chatelaine. It's now sitting in the project bag with the chatelaine.

I found that a canning lid (the pop-off bit you can't reuse) is exactly the right size for my crewel ornament. I had one sitting by my chair that I've used for holding beads. Now that I have a right-sized template, I need to find cardboard.

And I began beading my stocking. I finished row one only to realize that I was missing a pack of beads from my well-organized project box (so much for my organization skills). I had stitched a few of the missing beads onto my plan card and used them to verify I'd written down the correct number at the SJ Designs website. Then I sent a heartfelt plea for immediate bead gratification to Susan. I'll have my beads soon and can continue.

So I switched gears. I made a new stencil screen for the Camp Quality project. We went to see the new Star Trek movie (we hadn't planned on it but a friend recommended it and we really enjoyed it). We washed my car, vacuumed it, waxed the roof and hood, washed the insides of all the windows, and scrubbed the doors with those molded pockets that collect grime and the dashboard and any plastic bits that could be washed.... and this time the "we" really meant both of us out there in the lovely weather working on it together.

I enjoyed the weather so much, I decided it was time for more rust. Upon our return from our trip to New York to see Susan in May, Marge gifted me with a bag of old rusty pans. I was, and am, thrilled.

I washed them and let them rust a bit more. Last week on my trip to Jo-Ann's I got some sale fabrics: bleached muslin, unbleached muslin and gray cotton. I got them washed on my long weekend and had them ready to go. To rust-dye fabric you need rusty things but you also need heat and water. It's supposed to be hot and rainy this week. (Finally, a good reason for hot, muggy summer weather!) This is the pile after I packaged it all up. The plastic bin has a roll of fabric layered with steel wool and wrapped with copper wire (as of this morning it was rusting nicely). I've layered the muffin and pie tins with fabric, salt, tin, fabric...with some steel wool and rusty bits from my last attempt at rust dyeing (here and here) thrown in.

I have it in the back yard, rusting away (I hope). I put the plastic tub on top of the muffin tins to keep them squashed. I'd like to get some string and tie the pie tins--I think that would provide more contact. But I haven't done it yet. (Our neighbor was out weeding as I was doing this; I'm sure he's now convinced that I'm totally nuts. He only suspected before.)

more rust

Another long weekend, what bliss! I stitched a Hallowe'en ornament from my first rust attempts. I basted around the pumpkin magnet I'd used and then quilted it with an outline stitch over some old prequilted calico I had. Then I folded the edges under and slip stitched it to a piece of black felt with a scalloped edge. I added a knot of orange floss in each scallop and a buttonholed hang tie. The flash made this a little brighter than the actual piece.

I also stitched a pulled thread ornament and did some other fun things I'll write about later on. Right now I'm all about the rust.

Saturday night I sat out in the grass in back of the garage, with gloves and a mask, and unrolled the rusty fabric. Here are some final pictures of the fabric before I unrolled it. The bottom of the container sure was sludgy.

I slowly unrolled the wire, wrapping it around a bottle to keep it for next time. Then as the sludge drained into coffee filters (to clear the water and also save that lovely rust for future use), I unrolled the fabric and picked off bits of rusty steel wool. Those went into a container to save, too. I rinsed out the box and then placed my semi-cleaned fabric in it and added clear water and rinsed it around.

It's a good thing coffee filters are cheap--the rust really clogs them up and I used quite a few filtering the container water and then the rinse water. I'm using quart-sized yogurt containers for filtering, rinsing and storage and I began layering a clean, dry filter with a rust clogged one as I went along. Later on I laid them out on a box top to dry.

I swished my fabric around in the rinse water and picked off more pieces of steel wool. I had wrapped two pieces of fabric on my tubing so I had multiple layers of copper wire and steel wool. After the first rinse I filtered the water and then rinsed the fabric again.

I took the whole mess inside then, to the utility tub, and thoroughly rinsed out the box, the water container, strainer and the fabric. Then I hung the fabric to dry. Taa-daa! These pictures are the first fabric, front and back. The fronts are a little different from the backs.

Here's the second fabric piece,
front and back.

I may try another batch and let it rust in the basement. Doing it outdoors is definitely a summer thing. I like that it took about a week to rust because that fits my schedule--set it up one week, rinse the next. It would go quicker in the heat of the summer.

I'm certainly noticing rust everywhere. We did some antiquing on Friday and I noticed I was hunting the shop for rusty objects--something I definitely would have bypassed in the past! Didn't see any this time.

Rust!

While at last weekend's quilt show, I met Lois Jarvis (here, too). She made the Ground Zero quilt that was on display at the show and had a lovely booth. This is a sample piece of her rust dyeing--it's amazing. So, I bought a rust dyeing kit that included this cd and everything needed to try it out including prepared for dyeing (pfd) fabric so I could just dive in. Let's make rust!

I didn't get to it Saturday (and it was a shame because it was hot this weekend) and ended up getting things going after dark Sunday night. (It's getting dark way too early now!) We have a street lamp across from our house so I worked on the front steps and my fabric has been dyeing itself all week there, to the consternation of the squirrels and confusion of my hubby's friends.

So here it is, all wrapped and tied to cook away in the sun. I got an inexpensive plain toolbox from HobbyLobby to hold the dyeing fabric and give me a place to rinse it out and, hopefully, store some of the dyeing equipment. It got cool and rainy but I figured that would be okay because it would just dye more slowly and I won't have time to unwrap it until this weekend.

I had also purchased some iron filings and decided to try magnet dyeing--I placed a magnet cut out into a pumpkin shape in a plastic veg tray. I laid a piece of damp pfd fabric on it and sprinkled on the iron filing. Supposedly they would gravitate to the magnet. I added salt and let it sit over night. This is what I got.

Here are the rinsed pieces. Not very pumpkin like but kinda cool. This fabric is certainly stained! I learned that unless I wanted to smell like iron all day I need to wear gloves. And not wash things out in the bathroom sink.

Here's the fabric bundle on day two. Not much change.

Here's day four. I got more copper wire to wrap the outside layer. (I did a double layer--of course I can't follow instructions!)

Here's the underside on day four. Gettin' rusty!

I didn't get a shot this morning but it was looking pretty gross--which seems to me to be a good thing. I went out and got some additional supplies--more steel wool, face masks (just cheapies), coffee filters to filter the rinse water, a cheap strainer to hold the coffee filters. My starter kit included gloves and synthrapol to wash the fabrics in when they're done. I also rounded up some yogurt containers from recycling (the quart size) to use to hold my new stash of rusty bits.