Rusted fabric

Rusted white cotton jersey knit using crumpled
steel wool.

This past weekend I experimented with rusting fabric.  I used a heavy white cotton jersey.  I crumpled and pulled out pieces of steel wool (without soap) and sprinkled them on the sprayed fabric.  I covered the steel wool/fabric with another layer of fabric and sprayed it with more 50/50 vinegar/water, then covered it with black plastic.  I left it overnight (6pm to about 7am this next morning).  For some reason I didn't pull it apart but covered it back up and left it until late afternoon by which time it probably had gone farther than what I wanted but it still looked wonderful.  On another piece I put large round pieces of rust (from my old van...) which didn't do anything.  My friend Lou Wolf (mentioned in earlier posts with indigo shibori) said I was supposed to weigh it all down with something heavy which may be why the large pieces didn't do anything.  Crumpled steel wool seem to do well in either case.

I used mint tea leaves to continue the experiment (below) to achieve some irregular dark dots.  I did a previous experiment a couple of years ago on rusted white linen with well used wet green tea leaves (on dry fabric as I remember) and got gorgeous dots and splotches.  More experiments to do!

Rusted cotton knit sprayed with vinegar/water solution
and then sprinkled with mint tea leaves for dark dots.