I Stained The Driveway

We ended up with mixed results from our rust dyeing.  

Jennifer had two big pieces of canvas.  This one ended up looking really cool.  

One day soon, it will be an apron.

The other one should have been really amazing, she placed in on coils of wire.  But they didn't rust, we figure they must have been coated.  

This part sat on the outdoor fireplace grill - a very popular piece.

But this one is fabulous and we learned to test metal first.  If you get it wet and leave it out, you'll be able to tell if it will rust or not before you play with it.  

I love this, it's from the grill of the smallest hibachi I've ever seen.  Smaller than the one in the link.

This one was wire wrapped around rebar.  It's my favorite of the stuff I made.  

The lines are from the wire.  

I think it was floral wire - not sure though.  That's what happens when you buy your supplies at thrift shops and yard sales.  :)

This is from where the rebar touched the fabric.  I like this part, too.  We're going to find some larger tubes to wrap fabric around so that more of the fabric gets color.  We're thinking wine bottles or large pvc tubes.   Stay tuned.

Here's a sweet little piece that I put on some rail road ties and steel scrubbies. 

 I don't know how I feel about it, it's a bit too something something for me.  Geometric, maybe?  

  

I love this.  It's a sleeve from a horrifying lilac linen jacket - plus sized with a very unflattering cut - it needed a change.  I laid it on top of a steel screen from our outdoor fire pit.  

I love the all over pattern from it.  

This sleeve I wrapped around a rusty wrench with some various washers and metal doo-dads added in.  Its pretty cool, too.

Psychedelic man!

And here's the shirt.  I think I like it.  I put it on a drain cover that I found on the side of the road several years ago.  I picked it up because...just because.  

This is the back.  I like the front better than the back.  I covered the stain I wanted to cover.  But all over, I'm not nuts about the look.  It looks stained more than dyed.

Here's the apron with my bonus shadow.  The apron just looks dirty to me.

Up close, if I were to take the time to appreciate the details, I like them.

But parts also just seem dirty to me.  I think I like the all over patterns better.  The splotchy bits don't work for me at all.  

Next time - and there will be a next time - I might pick up some iron oxide powder.  You can sprinkle it on the fabric and it colors more of it.  I'm hoping the color will look more intentional.  

Also, it took more than 24 hours because we moved the rusty pieces around to different parts of fabrics to dye more of it.  The difference between vinegar and salt was only in the smell.  I didn't see a difference.  

We learned a ton.  We'll be trying this out again maybe on a smaller scale.  I laid out a tarp in the driveway and it took up lots of space.  Jennifer came up with the idea of just putting a piece in a plastic bin.  We could always have a piece rusting if we chose to.  It takes up less space and probably wouldn't stain the drive way.  Oh yeah, I stained the driveway.  

Rust Dyeing

Time to try something new.  

It seems a little whack-a-doo but that never stops me from trying something.  

In fact, it kinda makes it more tempting, doesn't it?

The idea is pretty simple.  You take some metal that will rust and put it on or wrap it in some fabric.

Get them wet to encourage rusting.  

We added vinegar to some of the pieces and salt water to others to see which would encourage rusting  better.

I'm thrilled to be rusting this shirt.  It's an Alabama Chanin design that I made with an old tee-shirt.  It fits me really well but I stopped sewing at this point when I saw the very light but also really big stain on the front.  Oh, that's why that shirt was in the thrift shop.  So I'm rusting over the stain here, fingers crossed.

Bottle caps on a linen sleeve that is resting on a grate.

Soaking some washers and bottle caps in salt water.

The tool chest, including my ubiquitous cup of tea.

I looked for spray bottles at the dollar store but couldn't find any so I bought these cool water cannon things.  

Way more fun to use than spray bottles.

These are Jennifer's pieces, at least one is destined to be an apron.

Then we covered everything with a tarp.  We just need to keep it wet and hope for the best.  It should take about 24 hours to get rusted.  

Have you ever rust dyed? I'm curious to hear about people's experiences.  

Logic Is So Overrated.

Look how tidy!  I just had to brag a little bit

I did empty this  - two glasses worth - and today my stomach is mad at me.

I found this which I had totally forgotten about.  It was a learning piece from Subversive Crossstitch.  

I also added a doorknob to this cheap little dresser I picked up.  It was missing a drawer pull. I have plans to paint it at some point.

 

Look, I made an unintentional face.

So now I can move on to some of the million and seven things I want to work on.   I started to work on the journal idea I'm all excited about.  

I cut out the guts of this book.  It's the perfect size for pages that are folded in half regular paper.

I want to add some regular printer paper, pretty paper, some cool looking pages and some random inspiring quotes and bind it all in there. I'm stuck at the quotes part. I know how I want them to look but I think the idea needs to marinate a little bit before I make my quote pages.  I do have a collection of quotes in two separate Pinterest boards with content that overlaps quite a bit.  

Logic is so overrated.  

Curvy As The Learning Process

It's called a learning curve.  We're in one.  First, I'm on my third try at a tank top ala Alabama Chanin (but my size).  Somehow it's not quite perfect but I'm getting there.  

I have gained a huge appreciation for wax paper.  I copied the pattern onto wax paper and altering it is as easy as taping on more or cutting it up. Which is, in case you didn't know, really easy.  

I don't have a picture of the first try because it has already joined the rag pile.  It was a bit small in the bust so I added a little triangle of wax paper to the front of the pattern.  It also had too large of an arm opening.  The side of my bra showed.  That  happens for me a lot with tank tops,  It's so awesome just to be able to add a little wax paper to the pattern and voila:  A shirt that's fit just for me!

2nd try, pretty good, but the little triangle I added in the front made it a little low cut for me.  

Number 3, much better.

What I need to figure out now is how to place a couple of darts - because I'm as curvy as the learning process.  

I think I can figure it out.

Then there's taking pictures for our Etsy Shop opening which is speeding towards us at an alarming rate.  I made a light box using some online tutorials (I love you, on-line tutorials - How did we ever know things before the internet?).  But the pictures taken using it are dim.  I think the bedside lamps didn't quite cut it and we'll need to buy some bright lights with reflectors.  But I did take a little time and f try to edit the picture online.

Can you tell which is which?  I realize that these are very shadowy..learning process, remember?

So we took some pictures outside.  It worked well but somehow books don't belong in the grass.  

Also, what do we do in the winter?  We talked and planned as we snapped pictures and the process of doing it all at the same time was very helpful.  Kind of like doodling while talking on the phone.  

We've come up with some ideas for how we want our pictures to look and what we want our aesthetic to be.  That makes it easier to make choices - kind of like a mission statement.  It's a process and it's really inspiring and enjoyable to be able to dig in and work to make everything come to life. It's a good learning curve, I really enjoy the process of learning now that I'm a grownup and get to pick what I learn and how I learn it.

Getting My Act Together and Taking It On The Road!!!!!!!!

So, this will seem pretty random but when I was in college, I had to bring in a song to learn for Musical Theatre class.  I knew nothing about sheet music or what to pick so I asked the guy at the shop to pick for me.  I don't remember which song he picked but it was from the musical "I'm Getting My Act Together and Taking it on the Road".  I think the reason I don't remember the name of the song is that I never sang it.  My teacher said he didn't want to spend the semester hearing it over and over again so we picked an old standard from the '40's for me to sing.  It was actually pretty funny.

In any case, any time I am getting myself organized my brain shrieks: I'm Getting My Act Together and Taking it on the Road!  And that is what is ringing in my head because I am vending at a craft fair (My first in years) this coming Saturday.

I made cards.  I sewed on them a little bit.  

We're probably going to change the design eventually so I only made 40.  

It doesn't seem sustainable to always sew on our business cards but I like the way it looks.

I made a big ol' sign.  I sewed on that, too.

But you can't really see the stitching unless you're up close to it.  I need to fix that somehow.  I don't want to sew on it too much because it perforates the paper and if I do too much, it will fall apart.  

I have some stuffed animals.

Jewelry out of electronic components in muffin tins...Yes that's right, muffin tins.  They're good for storage.  

Pin cushion bonanza!

Jewelry out of tee shirts and my partner has a lot of wool crowns and balls.

And I have the ability to take credit cards which feels like a super power.  I know there's butt loads more of stuff to prepare but I feel like I'M GETTING MY ACT TOGETHER etc...  

PS - I still can't carry a tune.  That poor teacher was tortured by my singing for a whole year, 

Quilts Up!

Last night I joined my Modern Quilt Guild at the Alicia Ashman Library to help put up our first annual quilt show!  It was a blast.  I use the term "help" for what I did loosely because my feet were having a bad day, but I did offer some moral support.

Check out the picture on the ad, it's of one of mine.  :)

We first piled them up roughly by size.  There are so many beautiful quilts in the show.  At first we didn't think there would be room for all of them.

After some measuring and figgering we realized we had the room but just barely.  Which is perfect, really.  One doesn't wish for blank spaces when hanging a show.

There were two basic hanging areas, here by the magazines.

Check out the Mrs's Courageous Pantses:

They were calmly and coolly hanging stuff up so high that looking at them from the ground made me dizzy.

Up goes the denim quilt I made for the Project Quilting Challenge.

I have to say I feel like mine kinda stick out in that they are the only really heavy, not made out of quilting cotton ones there.  No judgement of either kind of quilt there (I've made lighter ones before), just an observation.

How cool is that.  Giant book quilt in a library.

Please indulge my abuse of the panoramic feature.  It's just fun to do.

This one's by the bathroom  

And so it this one.  It's my corduroy quilt.  I almost didn't get to hang it.  In my mad rush to get out the door, I drilled too wide of a hole on the hanging pole thing for one of the eyehooks.  I threw some wood glue in the hole but there was no time for it to dry and honestly, the glue wouldn't have done the job for the two months this monster is slated to hang.  It really was unhangable.  It's just heavy as hell and really needed all the support it could get.  

I brought it along anyway.  I mentioned to one woman there that I need some wire or something to secure the eyehook to the pole and she pulled a short length of wire right out of her pocket.  Quilter to the rescue!  

Who carries wire in their pocket?  I may from now on.  You never know.

The rest are all hanging in the children's room.

They put all of the most colorful ones there.

There were some improvisational hanging techniques going on since we had more quilts than they had hanging apparatuses. 

This is my favorite one there. (Am I allowed to have a favorite?)  It's so simple but colorful and I love the layout.

Love it.

How cool is that?

This one matches the wood and the wall so well, it's like it was made for that space.

Finally, another library appropriate one that fut just right under a spotlight, like it was made to be put there.  

The quilts will be up through the end of June.  I hope you can stop by and see them!