Rust is the Rage

ALL the rage, in the textile world. Or at least in the one I am mostly in. Marion rusts, Kimberly rusts, Sue rusts, Alice rusts ...... others rust. And now *I* rust. Or at least my fabric did. I did a minor experiment with rust-dyed fabric this weekend, and while I can't say that my results are spectacular, they're OK for a first-attempt, with mostly found materials (translate: $0 cost!).

Here are my pictures of the resulting fabrics. I used a rusty rooster ornament from a couple years back's flower garden, and an "antique" (so he says) door roller that Mike found somewhere. And I created:



The last little piece looks like it was wrapped around a rake. There's a very good reason for that: I found a rusty old rake head out near the garden shed and wrapped cloth around it, too. The other 3 pictures are using the above mentioned rooster and roller. Apologies for the mangled appearance of the photos. Blogger and I don't always see eye-to-eye on things.

The fabric I used on these pieces was just an old cotton bedsheet I purchased at Goodwill. Cost all of 50 cents, probably. They sell the all-cotton ones for less than the $1 poly-blend sheets, cuz they figure you'll have to iron cotton. HA! silly them. But my primary observation about rust dyed fabrics? They stink. REALLY stink. And now my hands do, too, even after washing them twice. I can still smell rust on them. I hope the fabrics get better after I wash them, or my rust-dyeing career is going to be the shortest in history.

We went to the State Fair this weekend, and of course moseyed thru the quilt display. The winner of Pride of Nebraska utilized rust-dyed fabric as a background for silhouettes of windmill blades done in pastel colors (roses, purples, mostly) The background appeared to be overdyed with a golden color - not a pure procion, but a mix of something. It was a simple, but very effective quilt. Then I picked up an issue of Belle Armoire at B&N - I stopped subscribing a year or two back, and now only buy it if I see something in it I want to read. This time there was an article on rust-dyeing. HUH??? It really IS all over the place. There also was a feature photo in the readers gallery in the back of some rust-dyed scarves. SEE??? I just keep running into this stuff. And THEN.... to top it all off, when I came home and started to do laundry, right there in my own washing machine was a rust-dyed t-shirt that Mike had done!!! Well, no, not on purpose, but still.......