Rusting Fabric

Rusting fabric seems to be very popular right now among fiber artists. I hadn’t given it much thought until this morning when I found a forgotten iron stake rusting in the flower bed. It was the perfect opportunity to try rusting my own fabric.

I selected a few pieces of fabric, tied them around the pole, soaked the tied fabric in vinegar, and wrapped it in plastic. Halfway through the process, I did a bit of internet searching to find out if I was doing it right. Kimberly Baxter Packwood has a great how-to and Q & A pages on rusting on her website. She recommends letting the fabric sit 24 hours before neutralizing the fabric. I wonder if I want to let mine set a bit longer since my metal wasn’t very rusty when I started. However, I don’t want to wait so long that the fabric rots away either.
Reading Kimberly’s Q & A page, I learned that rusted fabric is not archival. The rust will bond with the fibers and continue to rust indefinitely. How long does it take rust to actually eat a hole in fabric? Perhaps I need to be careful how I use rusted fabric in my quilted art pieces. I suppose it depends on how rusted a piece of fabric is, and whether a few holes will matter artistically and structurally.

I will show the fabrics again after I have untied and washed them.

Completed Sea Glass Quilts

Sea Glass I & II
9 x 12½
I was concerned that the dense quilting in the white areas would make the “glass” part of the quilt pucker. A heavy interfacing behind the batting seems to have worked well to prevent this.

Swimsuits & Thread

August is NOT a good month to buy a swimsuit. Spent most of yesterday shopping with my daughter to find a swimsuit in the right size that she likes (which isn’t an easy job at the end of summer with them all picked through.) Why did her bathing suit get a hole in it one day before swim lessons were over? But that’s okay, we might do some more swimming this summer, and it should fit next summer too. Now I’m tempted to go see if I can find a new suit for myself since the prices are so good.

I decided on white thread for the Sea Glass quilts, and then couldn’t do any quilting when I realized I was out of white thread. After I finally got out shopping and came home with white thread, I changed my mind and outlined each piece loosely with variegated light blue which I already had.

I’ve only quilted through the top and backing so far, so I could decide whether I want to bind it or do a pillow case finish. After I add the backing, I will do some more quilting with white on the background.

Sea Glass in Progress

Sea glass I and II are arranged and fused onto white fabric. I need to decide what to do about quilting. My original thought was to outline the shapes loosely with dark thread. My thoughts now are that dark thread could overpower the softer colors. The first on especially needs something to add interest, but I am afraid of adding too much.

Sea Glass & More Community Quilts

I’ve got lots more fabric leftover from the bag of fabric that was given to me. I had enough flannel scraps leftover for a tiny quilt. Our guild donates small quilts to hospitals for preemie babies.
I have also started piecing together some of the Christmas fabrics which were in the bag. Christmas quilts often get chosen first by kids even when it’s not Christmas.


This months Fast Friday Fabric Challenge is to make a quilt with the concept of “less is more” by having a relatively small focal point surrounded by lots of negative space. Or by working with the “more is more” concept by having an overall pattern with no prominent focal point.

I like to pick up sea glass when I go walking out to the small rocky beach at the end of a marsh trail in San Leandro. I had in my mind to do a “less is more” quilt with a few shapes inspired by my small beach glass collection. I cut a few more than I needed, so I would have some choices when I was arranging the pieces, and then got carried away a bit. I may decide to make a quilt for each of the options available this month.

Grab Bag CD

I have been enjoying looking at all of the wonderful quilts on the 2008 Grab Bag CD which just came in the mail yesterday.



Here is the quilt that I made for Lyn Wolf Jackson:
and a bowl from the scraps:

And the quilt made for me by Janice Simpson:

These are two of the 59 quilts that are included with detail photos and artist statements on the CD. Instructions for ordering CDs can be found here: http://www.virginiaspiegel.com/NewFiles/ACSFundraiser.html

The Grab Bag CD, Fabric Scraps, and Community Quilts

The Grab Bag CD is now available. For a minimum $10.00 donation to the American Cancer Society through Fiberart For A Cause, and shipping and handling of $2.00, you can obtain a CD containing 173 inspiring photographs and artists' statements of the 59 wonderful quilts that resulted from the 2008 Quiltart Grab Bag Challenge. Complete details for ordering are here: http://www.virginiaspiegel.com/NewFiles/ACSFundraiser.html. I will be ordering mine in the next day or so, and will be looking forward to seeing all of the quilts which were made this year.

I was given a couple of bags of leftover fabric. I decided there wasn’t anything that I wanted to keep for myself. But there were a lot of nice pieces of fabric which I thoughtmy guild could use for their Community Quilts program. There were flannel pieces cut into strips, all different widths and lengths. I decided to sew the strips together to make a top for Community Quilts, and proceeded without much of a plan except to improvise as I went along. I enjoyed working with the happy bright colors. This will be completed by the guild with either tying or quilting, and will make a small girl very happy. It’s super soft and cozy too, being all flannel.

There are a lot of Christmas prints in the bag too. I might do something similar with them.