Rust Dyeing

When using the rust technique if you want the process to stop you need to neutralize it with a salt water solution. I put about 1/4 cup salt into a five gallon bucket, if that gives you a ratio.

I use straight vinegar and all sorts of rusty objects, I keep telling myself I will photograph those last 47 objects and get them onto the website but it doesn't seem to be happening.

You can do pole wrapping and bound resist techniques with this, also you can sprinkle iron mordant or iron shavings onto your fabric for other patterning. I suggest the iron mordant over the shavings, shavings often imply sharp things that can cut you, and they may be coated in machiners oil.

You can also do this technique using old copper pieces but it takes a bit longer.

If you like your rusty pieces and want to push it further rinse it, neutralize it, rinse it again and then rust the fabric once more. This will help prevent the fabric from rotting through.

Your natural rust is an iron oxide. Wear gloves and a mask when working with it, iron in that form loves to bind with your hemaglobin blocking all available sites for oxygen, ask me how I know. You can become gravely ill from too much contact with raw iron products. And it varies with each person.

Working with natural rust? What color is your natural rust? It comes in about 10 or more natural colors depending on what’s in the neighboring soils.

You can mix this natural rust with water or soy milk and paint your fabrics with it. I mix the rust with water, stir really well, let it sit for 24 hours then apply to the fabric, use a junk brush. Let the fabric dry/cure for 24 hours and then rinse. By letting your natural rust sit in the water for 24 hours your ensuring that all of the color will dissolve. I use about 1 TBS of oxide to 1 cup of water.

Snow

It's snowing and throwing freezing rain out there, so this is as good as any reason to stay inside and stitch.

I'm working on some painted timtex, embellishing it by hand and machine. I'm thinking of making a journal sized quilt, right after I go dye some fabric. I need to stitch and create something and soon, lately it's all been paperwork or stuff I'm making for work.

The orange is a bust for this week I think. The sangria color washed right out when I threw the wool fabric into the washer. So I dumped both dye baths, washed the fabric thoroughly and am planning to remordant the fabric with alum. I'll then put it back into a cochineal bath and see what happens. I could simply be that all of the dyes sites are taken up on the wool, but I have yet to have this problem so I"m finding this really hard to believe. Mine while I have an ugly yellow gold fabric to work whose color is begging to be changed.

Weird Dyeing Day

Well today was quite weird, and so was yesterday for that matter. I've been working on orange fabric for quite some time now and for some reason it's just escaping me. I dyed some yellow wool in cochineal on Sunday. I finally took it out of the dyepot yesterday, I ran it through the washer, it looked orange when it went in. When I took it out it was yellow again.

I had done everything right so I don't know what the problem is, I used an all-in-one cochineal bath, the alum was in the pot with the cochineal dye liquor. So why the orange washed out is beyond me. So back into the dye pot it went today, and poof orange again. I'll see what happens tomorrow. It's very mottled parts of the cloth look like sangria it's so distorted.

I brought my dyed silk cocoons up from my wet studio and am planning to remove the catepillar tonight. Then I will probably remove some of the sericin, which will probably remove most if not all of the dye color. I'm planning on decorating some pieces with the resultant fiber mass.

Here's a pic of Angel, my demon sheltie. I can't wait until she's housebroken!

Custom Dye Jobs for the Day

Well I am now exceedingly behind, but hope to get caught up this morning.

Things to do today is to dye fabric a rich Payne's Grey color, this should be fairly quick but I'm still having problems getting a good orange.

We've had two water main breaks in the last month and this is sending a lot of rust through the system making it impossible to get orange. Every red or orange fabric I dye turns purplish when it's rinsed in the washing machine.

Due to yesterdays high winds and the grass fires west of here there's a lot of dust and muck in the air, now my allergies are killing me.

If the Payne's Grey turns out ok I'll post the recipe here later, btw this is cotton I'm dyeing not wool.

For orange on wool I'm overdyeing osage orange with cochineal. I'm using alum as my mordant and am adding cream of tartar to the dye bath.

My new - ish building

Here it is my diamond in the rough! I put down the earnest money today, hubby is buying it for me for our anniversary! Normally he buys me iris' for our anniversary so I've decided to call it my "iris" building.

It needs a ton of work, the price, however, is right and the location is excellent, Ellsworth, Iowa. It's right off of the interstate in a town that already has a desitnation location business, The Sister Act.

It's also on the way to two big quilt shops, so this traffic flow will definately benefit the business. My biggest obstacle is convincing my one employee that she wants to commute to the shop.

My plan for the front of the store is two french doors, friendlier windows, awnings, big terra cotta pots with toparies and lots of flowers, and a wrought iron bench. We are putting what's called a false front on the top to visually extend the roofline upwards and to have a place for signage.

The best part about the store is no more stairs, praise God! I cannot tell you how much my knees hurt from having had knee surgery twice in one year.

Anyway... I have also attached pics of my hand dyed fabrics and some compost dyed fabrics. I am so excited it's warming up outside and I can get back to dyeing fabrics and yarn in my compost pile again. There is also a quilt in progress, the fabric I compost dyed.