The Spinner's Cottage: Ahh, finally an update....

Hi All,
I have finally gotten a chance to get back here. Thank you all for your patience with me. Also, I'd like to thank all of you for the positive and encouraging comments and emails. I appreciate you guys taking time to stop by and I enjoy hearing from each and every one of you.

So, this morning I am enjoying a quiet mid-morning coffee and thought it would be a good time to catch up a bit with you. I sure hope your summer is going well. I know it has been a hot dry one, but we are enjoying cool nights now so we should all be getting in the mood for fall. I know mom and I are and with that comes lots of new ideas from around the kitchen table.
We have been talking about colors and some new blends as well. We're also in the process of experimenting with some natural dyes. We're anxious to get the dye pot fired up and hope we come up with some interesting things. We'll see what happens.
We have some shows coming up as well as some demonstrations starting this month. As always, I will be demonstrating spinning on the drop spindle and may even have my little Ashford along. I will try to post an event schedule for this upcoming season soon, if any of you would be interested in dropping by and seeing us. I will try to post photos after each event.
I did the Balloon Festival in Wellington this year with LOCO and I forgot to take my camera out of the bag. It was hot as can be though and I ended up leaving at 4. All in all it was a nice time though and it was lovely meeting up with everyone and getting to know some of you better. My good friends Etta and Ed were busy spinning and talking to the onlookers, engaging them in the craft of spinning and explaining a little history for them. Thanks Etta and Ed for all you do for us! I think Etta deserves a "Good Shepherd" award for all she does for LOCO and the art of fiber in general. They both work tirelessly in promoting the fiber arts and the guild.

Object below on woven hot mat. Failed.

Now, on to some fun stuff. About 6 weeks ago, Etta invited me to a group that meets informally every week. The group's purpose is to explore and expand beyond the structured basics of fiber arts. Here, you are welcome to experiment, try new things out and just share your wildest fiber ideas. It's the place to discuss and do. This time was all about rust dyeing. Now, I have seen some of Etta's rust dyed pieces in the past, so I was anxious to try it for myself. It is quite easy to do, not too time consuming and you have interesting designs when you are done, whether or not it turned out as you had imagined, it is always interesting.

Here are the basic instructions.

Materials: plastic (saran)wrap, metal objects such as horse shoes, steel wool, wire, etc. Just be sure that what ever you use as your dye object is rusty or has the ability to become rusty. Salt (we used rock salt on the objects in the photos but most people use table salt), vinegar and water. You will also need a tub of some sort to soak your fiber in and a spray bottle to later spray the solution on your piece after you place your objects, and of course a canvas. Silk scarves are absolutely beautiful rust dyed, but you can use other things as well. Below you will see some experimentation that mom and I did with a yellow curtain, and lavender sheet. Unfortunately, the curtain which was intended for my kitchen window is too small. It may end up in my Etsy store soon if I can't think of another place to use it.

Some sort of rusty thing I found in my dad's barn.

Now, we worked on a picnic table outside. First we soaked our fiber in a vinegar and water solution. We used a wheel barrow about half full of water and added about 5 or 6 glugs of vinegar. We soaked it for probably 15 minutes or so, wrung it out and laid it on the saran wrap. At this point, place your objects to rust on where you want them. You can arrange half of the canvas and fold it over for a matching pattern or cover the whole thing with objects. Use your imagination.

Sprinkle salt generously over the objects and spray with vinegar solution of 10 parts water to 1 part vinegar. This will activate the rusting process. Or maybe it just speeds it up.

Next wrap it up tight in the saran wrap. We had to wrap extra around the rolled up piece.

This is a yellow curtain patterned with steel wool.

Then, place a heavy object on the whole thing to keep the fabric smashed tight against the objects and let it sit for 48 hours.

When you unwrap your piece it will be very dark and will probably have a layer of actual rust on it. That's ok, you will wash that off later.

We shook the remaining salt out and washed in the wheel barrow again with Dawn Dish Washing liquid and rinsed until clear. You may have to pick off some of the thicker rust areas but rubbing it together vigorously seemed to get most of it out.

Look closely, you can see undissolved rock salt.

After it dries, you can over-dye it or leave as is. Since the pieces in the photos were already colored before we started, we have left them as is. I am not sure what we will do with the sheet yet, I am thinking of weaving something out of it. Then again, maybe we'll try Etta's trick of sprinkling with Kool-Aid and steam coloring it. It serves to be a nice design element and can come out looking like a piece of marble or turquoise. Very interesting effects.

It makes me so happy to have a group of such talented and knowledgeable women to turn to for advice and help. Thank you to all of you who share your wisdom with us!