Rust Play (again)

After setting up the sundyeing the other day I also set up a collection of fabrics with rust dyeing. We recently took down a very old shed for a friend of ours and she kindly allowed me to scavange lots of interesting rusty bits for my collection! Yum! The warm weather was the ideal time to have a play.


~

I wet the fabric first and then shook white vinegar all over it (in a cat litter tray) and wrapped each fabric with a collection of metal. You may be able to see that one of the objects was a metal wheel on a stem (top left) along with washers and nuts. I also threw in a handful of salt crystals to see what effect that had. Once wrapped the parcels were placed in a sealable plastic bag and a little more vinegar and small amount of water added. Not very scientific but I can never remember what you're supposed to do and luckily this time it worked fine. I think the salt resulted in a quicker reaction than would have been the case without it.

~



~

As you can see I've got some exciting results! If you click on the image and enlarge you may be able to see that I used wing nuts, nuts and bolts, washers, nails, screws and some flat angled pieces of metal. The fabric in the bottom left corner is bamboo cloth which I bought from a well known doorstep household sale company. (Ok It's Betterware! No affiliation).


~

As usual I don't yet know what I will use this fabric for but I may have a go at overdyeing some of it. Some of the marks are reminiscent of landscape textures so they may well be incorporated into that type of work.