Unintentional pot of rust

The scrap bin at my local thrift store, holder of all manner of used metals, is stocked better on some days than others.  Trooped home with these recently and although caked up with goo, dirt, and who knows what else, they were a good find.  Stuck the whole lot in an acidic brew intended to eat away the whatevers, set the pot on the chest freezer in the pantry ... and then completely forgot about it.

Whoops.  Hadn't meant to create rust, but this could be advantageous.

Except that a very discernible sheen of mystery oil something-or-other is floating on the surface which doesn't look too promising.  Since all these bolts & washers were dunked with the purpose of a good scrub [covered in unknown industrial grease & grime], I'm tossing this liquid mess for now.  Dunno what it is and that makes me a tad nervous.  Luckily, this process is repeatable.  Here's the recipe for next time should anyone find the portions helpful:

two parts water

to one part vinegar.

add iron.

wait two weeks ...

[use a dye pot, or pail, etc. NOT a cooking pot from the kitchen]

... iron mordant.

Mordant = from the Latin verb 'mordre' which literally means 'to bite';

mordant helps the dye 'bite' into fiber.

A quick search on the internet has revealed that one can use iron liquor as a mordant by straining the solution into a stainless steel pot (that is, if one does not have an iron pot at hand to begin with) and after adding water, then add your pre-wetted fibers.  A short simmer of ten minutes or so, followed by a natural cool down in the solution and a thorough rinse at the end.  The fiber is "fixed" and both light-fastness and wash-fastness is improved when using most natural dyes.  Colors may well be altered - iron, also know as the great "sadden-er" produces quite beautiful results, turning some reds into deep Egyptian purples and some browns into shades of gray and brown-blacks.

HERE  is a quite interesting tale on the same subject.

And after all that, 

there's still the rusty bits to play with ...

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... passage to America

More often than not, I choose to sit in my jeep for the watery commute "to America"

(an expression used by the islanders when we refer to traveling to the mainland).

Some might call me anti-social

and that's ok in my books.

Most folks leave the car decks and head upstairs to the passenger area

to gab, or read ... maybe knit, work on the communal jigsaw puzzles, chug some coffee ...

I'm the weirdo who stays behind making photos on her phone.

I can't help myself.

Perhaps I'm an app-aholic?

good grief.

Where was I going with this post ... oh yes, to America ...

where I spied some scintillating rust at the shipyard

big pieces of steel marking the passage of time.

[ this one is for all my rust-nut friends ... you know who you are ]

We're all marking time ...
it's a big news night here in America.

These periodic supply runs off-island are nothing
if not exhausting, so what could be better fortification

than hot n' spicy organic soup ...

which again, I ate in my jeep ...

surely this comes as no surprise  [ grin ]?

These are only simple things, really ...

in comparison to decisions being made in the States this day, they are fluff.  As I write
it is early evening here on the west coast & we have
hours to go before we know.

I wonder where this country is going next?

At the toll booth the way was clear:  an arrow for  *go* and an X for *stop* ...

if only it were that easy.

See you on the other side, my friends ...
in the meantime, it may be time for another simple thing ~ a stiff brandy.



: : :


All photos were processed with Jazz

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Navigation: bundle #2

Doesn't look like much, does it?  Pretty blah.  And covered in mildew.

Looks can be deceiving.

Take an old thrift store napkin, soak it overnight in some soy milk,

stuff it's folded innards with some eucalyptus leaves, helenium blossoms, a couple nails

and a few rusty screws.

Roll the whole kit'nkboodle around a piece of driftwood, 

binding it as tight as you can with any old ratty garden twine ...

plunk the whole thing into a cast iron pot packed full with more of those euc leaves

and simmer away for a good 45 minutes or so.

Leave to air dry for about three weeks.

In case you might want some,

poor air circulation and/or lack of (drying) heat will bring on the pesky microflora.

May not be a bad thing, but I admit to going to battle with this batch of bundles

who ended up spending considerable time basking in my warming oven

and then received an extra steam treatment and a very hot hour in the dryer ...

+++++ STOP ++++++

you little mildewy buggers!

Many thanks to Fabienne for her encouragement & special steps walking me through that one ...

I had a good chuckle when I read the back side of this tag:

"Machine wash cold

Do not bleach

Tumble dry low

Warm iron as needed

Dry clean recommended"

It seems eco-printing is a made-in-heaven enterprise for rule breakers.

: : :

I have to include this one particular close-up ...

this face is for Jude ...

who still teaches me to  *see*  in many unexpected ways ...

thank you.

:::

It'll be a night for blue moon dreaming ....

let's all  just let it roll.

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Navigation: bundle #1

There appears to be no direct course ~ certainly no guarantees ~ for coaxing plants

to give up their colors on cloth.

Perhaps that's part of the thrill of it, all those unknown factors

working together to give us something we could never plan ...

like a party, where the group of invitees is such an odd assortment of characters

one has no idea of the party's outcome.

Will it break out in fistfights?  Be dull as dirt? (no offense to dirt)

Or encourage happy mingling with lots of pleasant repartee? 

Surely, the best way through a (new) thing is to just  GO ...

before you realize it,

you've set a course for yourself, one way or the other.

Back in July, I wrote  this post  about our merry band of island stitchers who happened

to take a quite unexpected detour from traditional shibori and sailed away (quite joyously) 

into another realm entirely ...

the one where  India Flint  lives.

We "bundled" our hearts out.

And over innumerable cooking pots of assorted vegetation,

a few of us lost our hearts to the process ...

For the next few days I thought I would post, one bundle at a time, my results ...

a good way perhaps, to keep permanent notes on how the colors came to be

and generally place some records here about this very special kind of mark-making.

:::

Bundle #1 was a scrap of silk (no mordant) folded around purple pansies,

madrone bark, metal washers and one rusty nail,

wrapped around a piece of driftwood, secured with rubber bands,

steamed for 45 minutes,

then left to air dry for three weeks.

Biggest surprise?  That lovely peach color (below the washers) from the Pacific madrone bark.

Some great potential there in our native Arbutus menziesii !

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Interior motives

The best laid plans, as they say...except when it comes to mark making with plants

and other sundry items,

it might be best to put ones expectations aside.

Here is the outcome from  last week's science experiment...

Things were going along quite swimmingly with my idea to stuff two pieces of cloth

~ one, 100% silk, and the other 100% ramie ~

with identical ingredients:  red cabbage, fresh young bracken leaves, a spiral coil of copper wire.

The wrapped bundles looked promising when they first came out of their simmered cabbage "soup"...

that is, until I got the not-so-bright idea of dribbling a tiny amount of full-strength vinegar onto Bundle #1

(shown in its "before" state on the left, HERE)

aaaarrrrgggghhhh,  the whole thing immediately went  P I N K

and worse still,

bleached out every mark except for the copper spiral.

Since you never learn anything the second time you're kicked by a mule,

I decided to leave well enough alone...

Bundle #2 was put up to dry

and Bundle #1 was, well, put out to pasture?

In the meantime, a potful of gorgeous darkblueypurpley dye was still sitting there

and I couldn't bear to throw it away...what if...

so I tore the sleeve from a silky thrift store blouse, wrapped it around a chunk of driftwood 

with some rusty metal bits

and after a good stew overnight and five days rest,

the binding came off...

time, oh yes, time is your friend.

These are priceless words from a wise, wandering alchemist.

The driftwood soaked up quite a lot of color.  In fact, the cloth felt quite dry as I peeled it open

while the wood was still heavy from the moisture.

And it smelled like a big boiled cabbage, tah boot!

Dry down knocked that pink back to a pale lavender, but the blues stayed quite true.

The next thing that happened

reminded me of school days.  Ever try to use that line,

"Sorry teacher, but my dog ate my homework"?

True to her nature, Quinn ate my bundler.

But the "homework" was safe.

: : : :

Special thanks goes out to Dianne, who recently posted a series of photographs

from her time in San Francisco...all processed with the Snapseed app.

They are glorious and she inspired me bigtime ~ I used the app for this post.

Please go see her images HERE.

: : : :

To everyone stateside celebrating the 4th this week, Happy Independence Day all!

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Tattered lace on a black dress

Thumbnails.  How many times has it happened?
Those itty bitty pictures that just beg to be clicked.  I saw one today and had to follow it.
I was certain it was an antique textile and I had to have a closer look . . .

this, of course, was the tattered lace edge on an old black dress.

Ahem.

I've come to accept the fact that I just don't see things as they really are.  It happens so often
I really can't ignore it.  I see what I want to see.
I think it's a habit, this  misinterpreting  reading into things.  Dunno why I embellish with
some sort of alternate reality, but this I do . . .

constantly.

There's an upside to this penchant . . . I head into new territory without even meaning to.
By following that "tattered lace" thumbnail, I discovered a photographer doing some wondrous things
with completely ordinary objects.
Oh, how I admire this!
Don Taylor is on Flickr and has an amazing eye for capturing metallics - yes, metal -
to the extent of being poetic in his renderings.
Even sublime.

This is metal . . . and all I saw was fabric.  My alternate reality.

In fact, I see textiles or work with cloth, in all of these photos.
Call me crazy, but this is how they look to me . . .

 . . . marks from natural dyeing

. . . beautiful seam work

. . .  boro mending

and shibori . . .

rust dyeing over indigo . . .

and embroidery stitching on a nine patch.

This is a thread knot resist . . .

and these . . . layered silks, probably invisibly basted  ;>}

a beaded line over a linen collage . . .

old scraps, torn and frayed, yet anchored with cabochons . . .

and a fragile weaving within a bigger (much bigger) story.


Each one gritty . . . raw. . .
highly textural.
Not exactly the words I might use to describe textile art . . .

ooh, that's right . . . it isn't.


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p.s.  up for one more?  look what Taylor can do with a Victorian hightop shoe...

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