A Clean Up Day

I took another day off from rust dyeing to clean up the room where I store the fabric, chemicals, and protective clothing i use in the Rust-Tex Studio. I should have taken a before and after picture but it is painful to admit part of my house looked that bad.
This room is just off the kitchen. You pass through it on your way to the deck. When we moved in almost 20 years ago it was a mud room with a sink and toilet bowl. That was great when we had little girls playing in the yard. As they grew up, it became the recycling center. We sorted recyclables into 12 different categories and each had to be processed a different way to get them recycled. Now our city uses a single stream method of recycling so it all goes into the same bucket. “YEAH” to that but “BOO” to the way the mudroom filled up with other stuff. The final straw came when that nice blue tub you see in the picture, which is full of fabric on its way to becoming Rust-Tex, was forced to sit in the middle of the room because there was so much other stuff in the mudroom that you couldn’t squeeze around it. At that point, I felt something well up in me. The useless stuff disappeared and everything organized itself neatly on the shelves. I am not sure how what happened. It might have had something to do with my reading the last Harry Potter book over the week-end.

Oh Where, Oh Where Have I Been?

Time sure flies when you are having fun. I had not realized that it has been over a month since my last post. I was busy in July not with rust dyeing per say, but with events that Rust-Tex puts in my life. First I wrote an article on rust dyeing for Fibre and Stitch magazine. It will be in their premiere issue which comes out Sept 1. There is still time to subscribe. Follow this link to find out more about Fibre and Stitch.

Second I was a vendor at the Batavia, IL Quilt Show. Here is a picture of my booth at that event.

I use clear plastic hanger to display the Rust-Tex fabric. The hangers are hung on horizontal rods so people can browse each piece of Rust-Tex. Each piece is totally unique so I want to give everyone the chance to select the piece they can see in there own work.

The very next week-end I was at Crystal Lake, IL at the Midwest Fiber and Folk Art Show. It was a well organized show. She even arranged perfect weather. I introduced rust dyeing to quite a number of people through my live demos and the great pictures on the Rust-Tex Instructional CD which I had loaded on the laptop. Here is picture of my both at that show. We were in a giant tent as you can tell from the picture.
My friend Merry helped me at this show.

We wore matching Rust-Tex t-shirts.
(Not exactly matching but as close as you can get Rust-Tex to match.)

...all about stars

I am producing a new Rust-Tex Starter Kit.

This one is for the Image Transfer Technique.

Here is a picture of the kit:

Here is a picture of what is in the kit:

Here is a picture of a wallhanging I made with the steel stars in the kit. I added a lot of commercial fabrics, mostly batiks.

Here is a picture of what I do with the industrial waste from the kit:

The kit will soon be available for purchase at Rust-Tex.Com

No Rust Dyeing Today

Today I was busy getting ready to teach a class on paintstiks at Mill House Quilts in Waunakee, WI. That means I didn't do any rust dyeing today, not that I didn't handle any rust dyed fabric. On the contrary I had to move it from one place in my studio to another to get to the paintstiks supplies. Actually I found I had piles of Rust-Tex all ready to sell in several place around my studio. So now they are all in one place. And I know what new labels I will have my youngest daughter (YD) work on next. She designed the Rust-Tex logo two years ago so I don't think I will be wasting my money sending her to The Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design.

Look What I Got!!!

If you are a regular Rust-Tex.blogspot.com reader you will know I have been whining about a wonderfully rusty cookie sheet that is rapidly deteriorating. On Sunday, June 10, 2007 I said I would post a picture of the results of the set up pictured there. Well here it is:

Boring!!!

There is no white line around a heart, there is hardly a heart, and the red barely made it to pale pink. Armed with the knowledge of what didn't work but still wanting to use that cookie sheet. I tried the same set up but used green tea instead of quebracho red. I also didn't put any tea on area of the napkin that was not bunched up.

Here is the second attempt:

Notice how the "heart" is staying white. On point that white area reminded me of a big white cloud floating over water so...

Third time is a charm!!!

Looks like I made a Stormy Seas fabric instead of my usual Stormy Skies.

I wish you a successful creative experience, cause mine was way fun!!!!

WHEW!!!

I got that commission done by machine quilting thirty minutes at a time three times a day. The binding took 3 movies, one each day for three days. Thank God for ibuprofen!!!

Our youngest daughter graduated from high school on Sunday so now I think I am going to have time to get back to regularly posting my adventures in rust dyeing.

This year I find that I can't wait until fall when the sumac trees are full of tannin to get black dye. So I have been experimenting with different forms of tannin. I am having great success with tea. My formula is one cup loose tea and however much water it takes to fill a one quart measure. The tea swells up quite a bit as you can see in this picture.

After it cools down, I drain it with a colander, squeeze any liquid out of the leaves, put the leaves on the compost pile and put the tea into the spray bottle. Any left over tea is marked "For Dyeing Only" and is kept in the refrigerator. The brand of tea I am using must be available world wide as the label is printed in four languages.

English / Chinese / French / Arabic

Cookie Sheet Revival

I was able to make another heart on the cookie sheet that collapsed last week. Here is the set up. By being very careful I was able to make one the biggest rust flakes into a heart shape. I raised it up from the rest of the cookie sheet by putting it on a small piece of wood. Hopefully this will create a white line around the heart. The red is from quebracho red, a South American tree that is high in tannin. I have been experimenting with it to try and get more colors into my rust dyed fabrics. I will post the results tomorrow.

Right now IT IS almost tomorrow. I have to go to bed so I can get a lot of rust dyeing done tomorrow.

Today is Beautiful

RUST-TEX REPORT FOR TODAY

FIRST THE GOOD NEWS

The storm I posted about on Wednesday totally missed Madison!!!

THEN THE BAD NEWS

It came through northern Wisconsin with a vengeance. 5 tornadoes touched down and baseball sized hail did a lot of damage. No one died. A canoe was jammed into a tree.

MORE BAD NEWS

Today is a perfect day for rust dyeing but I have too much to do to take advantage of it. My youngest daughter is graduating from high school on June 17, so we went to some graduation parties today and will go to some more tomorrow. I am also working hard to finish up a commission t-shirt quilt for someone graduating that same day. I have had the t-shirts since January so the parents won't be happy if it is not done in time. I will be putting the binding on tonight, even though all the quilting isn't done. I can only quilt about 30 minutes a day before my shoulder starts to hurt. And I can only hand sew the binding about an hour a day before that starts to cause pain so...

I gotta go get to work.

No More Hearts from this Cookie Sheet

It looks like a squirrel ran across this cookie sheet and "done it in". I guess I won't be able to get any more hearts from it and no dinosaurs either, just a bunch of rust flakes.
The weather around here has not been cooperating with the Rust-Tex production schedule!!! Most of this week has been too wet to work. Tomorrow evening we are expecting a mighty storm with strong winds to blow through here. My DH wants me to REALLY batter down the hatches. I don't mind putting it away, but getting everything set up and running again takes too much of my daily energy, not leaving very much for the fun stuff.

The Rust-Tex Report for Today

What I have to report today is that I have just spent several hours adding to the scarf gallery at Rust-Tex.Com. You should go take a look because I am too computered out to post anything here.

Battering down the hatches!!!

On Thursday it was TWW, (too windy to work). I had to rinse out what I had set up on Wednesday or it would get too dark or eat through the fabric. (Ah, the choices of a rust dyer) While I was out onside working in the Rust-Tex studio, the wind was whipping the trees around and making that swooshing noise that proceeds a big storm. Sometimes a stick would hit the deck. When I heard a big one land on the driveway, I quickly finished up the rinsing. I put anything that could blow away in the house.

As shown in the picture above I left the cast iron cookware on the table, to catch the rain and develop a deeper layer of rust. I figured if it the wind was strong enough to lift cast iron off the picnic table, the house wouldn't be left standing either. I went into the basement studio to wait out the storm. It passed through very uneventfully. Leaving behind a perfect day for rust-dyeing on Friday. Sadly I never got into the studio. Between garage sailing and cleaning the house for company in the evening there just wasn't any time. Today it is too cold. Maybe tomorrow...

Score!!!

The best thing I found while garage sailing this week-end was a plastic utility sink for $4. While we were at Home Depot, trying to figure out a draining system, we saw the same EXACT sink for $44. I never would have bought one at that price. But it is a great addition to the rust-Tex Studio.

As you can see from the picture it fits perfectly into this niche. My DH helped me attach it to the garden hose so now I have running water. How cool is that???

What I didn't find were any steel baking sheets. Whoever is buying up all the cookie sheets in Madison please call me? I think two of them would get me through the season. I would be willing to trade muffin tins for them.

A Terrific Tower of Tea

I scored this Terrific Tower of Tea while I was garage sailing this Saturday.

It doesn't matter how old the tea is because I am not going to drink it. I am going to use it in the Rust-Tex dye studio. It has been known since ancient times that iron oxide and tannin will give you gray fabric.

I Love Hearts

Here is the results of the set up I showed Friday April 27.

It didn't do exactly what I expected, which is part of the fun of rust dyeing. So I tried another napkin. This time I aligned the center fold of the napkin with the points of the heart. I liked the result much better, especially the little heart in the center. I set up another one today, but with a different crumple pattern for the edges. I'll keep making these until the cookie sheet collapses into a different shape. hummmmmm......a dinosaur would be interesting!

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!!!

Still Raining

It is still raining here in WI, but I heard there is a terrible drought in Australia. Speaking about water here is an interesting article:

SPENCER, Mass. - Dozens of residents were taken to hospitals Wednesday with burns or rashes after the town's water supply was accidentally treated with too much corrosive lye, officials said.
People in Spencer were advised not to use or touch the water until further notice, said Ed Coletta, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection.
Residents started complaining of skin irritation and moderate burns after showering early Wednesday, police Sgt. John Agnew said. He said officials determined that a malfunction at the town's water treatment plant had released too much sodium hydroxide into the water supply.
Sodium hydroxide, also known as lye, is routinely put into water to reduce acidity and limit pipe corrosion, Coletta said.
The fire department took about 40 people to hospitals with rashes or burns, firefighter Ryan Flannery said.
The state advised residents to discard any liquids or foods made with town water Tuesday or Wednesday.
Town Manager Carter Terenzini said that as of 11:30 a.m., about 12 people were undergoing "decontamination" treatment at St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester. He did not know whether those people drank the water, or if it touched their skin.
Without water, many local businesses had to close. David Cao, owner of the Spencer Coin and Clean laundry, said he turned customers away and closed all the washing machines.
"We don't have business today," Cao said. "We really will have to see when they come back."
The excess chemical was to be removed by evening and the water supply would be subject to extensive environmental testing, Terenzini said.
Flannery said bottled water companies delivered drinking water to the fire station, where residents could pick it up. Officials were arranging to deliver drinking water to people who couldn't get to the fire station, he said.
The town of 12,000 is about 50 miles west of Boston

Too Wet Here

It is too wet for me to do any rust dyeing. It is a good thing I rolled up some bottles earlier this week as the rain is keeping them well watered and helping them grow trees. I'll post pictures when they are finished.

That is One Rusty Cookie Sheet!!!

Today was THE perfect day for rust dyeing. It started out wet from last night's rain and ended up sunny and warm with out much wind. A couple of days ago, I had set up some scarves on a cookie sheet that was so rusty I thought it had a hole in it. To help retain the water, I put it on a big blue tray. It is a garbage can cover but I find it so useful in the Rust-Tex studio that I don't think of it's humble origins. With this wonderful set up I was expecting to get some gorgeous jasper scarves but instead I got a pale gold with just a tiny bit of veining.

the very rusty cookie sheet

the set up

the resulting color

That is what I LOVE about rust dyeing, the unpredictability of it!!!

TWW

TWW is an abbreviation I use that means "too weird for words". Today it meant "too windy to work"!!! Today started out just beautiful. So much like last year's 4th of July that I thought how much work I got done that day and how painful my legs were on July 5th. So I knew I would have to pace myself.

The first thing I do everyday is reclaim rust dust from my filtering system. The wind was blowing so strong, I put the filters in a container in the house. They will keep until the wind dies down and my precious rust dust won't go to the four winds.
The wind was hot and dry. It dried all my setups before any interesting marks could develop on the fabric.

Here is a picture to show how hard the wind was blowing. It was like that all day until about 7:30 when started to rain.

Day Three

Didn't get to do any rust dyeing today even though the weather was pretty good for it. Tomorrow we are going to have our first garage sale outing of 2007. I am hoping to find something wonderfully rusty at such a low price I can't refuse it!!!

Here is a picture from last ThursdayApril 12.