Rust Dyeing

I've become interested in rust dyeing and rusted a few pieces over the weekend.  These are cotton and I wet them with vinegar and wrapped them in steel wool and wrapped them in plastic.  Then I put them on the hot back deck for a few hours and left them overnight.  Here they are on the line the next morning after being washed out with gentle natural soap.  Now that they've been rust dyed they will take tannin very well so my next step will be to put some tannin-rich plants on them and eco  print them. I put a yarn doily on the long sleeved t-shirt to act as a resist and it just left a circle.  I will stamp something in the circle.  Please leave a comment or email any comments to me at connietb@sympatico.ca

The two pieces of cotton are vintage fabric serviettes that I inherited from my parents.  They have a nice texture.

Ecoprinting on cotton

Cotton is a little more difficult to ecoprint because vegetable fibres don't take the colour as well.  But if you rust dye it first and then add some plant material to it you get better results.  You're limited to brown and black but the results are good.   This a sumac branch that I folded into previously rust dyed cotton fabric.  I also sprinkled on some black tea for extra tannin.

Ecoprinting on watercolour paper

I did some ecoprinting a few weeks ago when we had cool weather.  Since then it has heated up.  This morning it has cooled down again so maybe I'll do some more printing tomorrow morning.  Here are some prints I did on 90 lb watercolour paper.  These are 9 X 12 inches.  On the left is a branch of a plant from my garden (not sure yet what) and on the right is a buckthorn branch and some wild grapes I saved in the freezer last fall.

The prints below are maple leaves and tulip petals on the left and tulips and horsetail on the right.

More collages

I really like to make collages.  I take the little scraps of material I have and put them on a background.  Usually a background fabric that I don't like that much so I can find a use for it.  Then I put a piece of sheer material on top and sew the layers together with decorative stitching.

For this first piece I didn't put any batting behind it and I also used pieces of silver paper saved from a chocolate bar.  I free motion stitched the layers together.

For the piece below I did put batting behind it and I used the decorative stitches on my machine to stitch the layers together.  I also experimented with putting different coloured sheers on top in different areas.  This one is large enough to cover a small journal or make a small wall hanging.

What to do with an old dish towel

I've been helping my parents sort through all their stuff and I ended up with a dish towel.  I wasn't really going to use it as a dish towel so I decided to make it into a little bag.  I simply cut off two of the blue ends to make a handle and then sewed the sides together and made a box finish at the bottom.  Washable and the right size to put lunch in!