What a Day!!!

Today was almost the perfect day for rust dyeing, cool, moist and no bugs. The only draw back was a northerly wind, usually it blows through the Rust-Tex Dye Studio from the south. The wind was too strong for me to reclaim any rust dust so the filters will remain in the house until that wind dies down a bit. The wind wasn't as strong as April 22, so it didn't prevent me from working. Not only did I rinse out six pieces of tree fabric, I did several interesting set ups today.

The best involved the very rusty cookie featured on April 23. A heart shaped piece broke out of it last time I moved it.

To make the most of a serendipitous event, I put a cotton napkin with a scalloped edge over the hole. Then I crumpled up the edges and added rust dust and tannin to get gray. This early in the season I use tea. Usually Earl Gray Tea, because it smells so good. Today I was out of Earl Gray so I used Chai. It could become my new best ingredient for rust dyeing!!! With the wonderful smells of ginger root, cinnamon, clove, allspice, nutmeg, and cardamom wafting off the set up, I might have to consider putting the set up in a cage to keeping the squirrels from nibbling on it. At the last moment I added a wire heart to the center to weight it all down.

I can hardly wait until tomorrow to see what develops!!!