shelly beach

Today I'm sharing a journal quilt I just completed yesterday for day 10 of AEDM.

The background is rusted fabric and the green stripe is painted teabag paper stitched down with gold coloured wire.  The shells are held down with a piece of red netting from some fruit.  As you can see, I do like to recycle, lol.  I am happy with this one, although it did not end up being what I first planned.  Sometimes you just have to use up the junk that's sitting right in front of you.
Happy creating!

A little bit rusty

Something I've been playing with over the last few weeks is Langridge  rust and verdigris bases that we have got in our cupboard at the art studio. I wanted to see what sort of finishes I could get on paper and fabric.  I do love the look of rust and the blue patina you get on copper and have rusted fabric before, but I wondered if this might be an easier way to get it.

Above is the rust base applied to - from left, cardstock, fabric fused to cardstock and a piece of plain fabric.  Both bases are very dark, thick pastes which I dabbed on with a brush.

And the same for the verdigris base.  At this stage they look very similar except the verdigris base has a bit of a coppery sheen.

I also had a piece of fabric left over, so I added both to it.

When the paper and fabric had two coats and were dry, I added the patina solution (but I also found, while waiting for the solution to arrive in the mail, that a solution of vinegar and salt also works well).
The patina takes a few hours to develop......

Above are the card samples, which worked really well.  Verdigris on the left and rust on the right.  These samples were just what I was after and I will probably use them in my art journals - or on them, they would make a great cover.

I cut my fabric samples in half and washed one half.  As you can see above the rust base worked well, and washing removed a bit of the black unreacted iron in rust base sample on fused fabric, but left a great rusted fabric.

This is the rust sample on plain fabric (somehow, in transferring my photos to my hard drive, I ended up with a few missing ones), but the washed sample was similar to the fused sample above.

The verdigris samples did not stand up to washing, although I got a great blue effect before washing, the blue all washed out.  I should have known, being a biochemist that copper sulphate is soluble in water!  This is the fused fabric sample.  The plain fabric sample was the same (again, lost photo).

This was the rust and verdigris sample, which looked great, although the blue washed out, again.
The surface of the fabrics is a bit gritty.  This doesn't matter for the paper samples, as they can be sealed with PVA, however I am not sure if I would want to stiffen the fabric that much.

All in all, it was a very interesting experiment and now I am looking for ways to use these samples in my mixed media work.  I think the patinas would look nice layered with embossed metal embellishments and charms.  mmm.... new collage ideas.

On the sewing front, I have just started a workshop at joggles, called Tandletons,  which are little tatted, needlelaced and embroidered buttons.  Here are my first samples from week 1.

I have used milk carton caps as my base for these, which is not the way they are taught in the workshop, but I do love recycling stuff!  Below are some others I have also made, previously on my own.

I have showed these before, but it was easier to just pop them in rather than find the link, lol.  If you remember my red art quilt, which I made for the Tangled Textiles challenge - you will know that I love buttons!

And the return of the digi inspiration!
Have fun creating!

Rust dyeing

Well, now I can say I have tried rust dyeing.
Rust dyeing is one of those things, like gelatin monoprints that you have to prepare for days in advance, which is why I never seem to get around to it.
However, I decided that some rusted fabric might go well with the Tangled Textiles theme "Tools"
So, I had a go and I liked the results.

I used steel wool (which I stole from my other half's polishing cupboard, but you can get it at the hardware, or steel wool scourers at the supermarket, only make sure you wash all the soap out as it will slow the rusting)

• First, I soaked my steel wool in a salt solution for about an hour, then poured the salty water off.
• I left my moist steel wool for a few days in a plastic tray, dampening it with more salty water, when it got dry.
• Don't leave the steel wool laying  in salty water as you will get greenish Iron Chloride instead of orange Iron oxide or rust 
• When the steel wool is falling apart, it is ready to use.  
• To damp cloth, add the rusy material and allow to leach into the fabric overnight, then allow your fabric to dry. 

  

I did not pre soak my fabric in anything, although it is suggested that you soak in soda ash before adding the rust.  (I would have used Alum soaked  fabric which had been dried)  I found that the rust was pretty permanent.

This piece of fabric was totally untreated (just rust dyed) and has been boiled a few times.

This piece of fabric was soaked in a saturated solution of Alum when dry and has also been boiled a few times.  As you can see there is not much difference, really.

This was a treated piece of fabric, like the one above, and now we come to the reason for boiling.  I did an experiment with some wax as well on the last two pieces.  However, I used what I had, just molding wax.  The problem was that the wax did not penetrate the fabric properly and when the fabric was immersed in rust, the wax could not resist properly - there was only wax on one side.  You can see above that the wax did penetrate in a few places where the fabric is white.

As well as this problem, I had trouble getting rid of the wax,  and had to scrape and boil a few times.  I think I will leave my wax experiments until I get hold of some soy wax.

As far as the rust goes, however the experiment was pretty successful and as I like the colour and texture in these fabrics, I will be doing more!

If at first, you don't succeed - try try again.