I have had plans for a while to make a quilt about my chronic anemia. Since it’s all about iron deficiency, it only makes sense to involve some iron in the making of the quilt itself. That means rust dyeing! Yay!

I had previously done some rust dyeing with washers and loved the way the dyed fabric looked. Sort of like red blood cells…or close enough to represent them, anyway.

   

I found some rusty metal letters online. I had no idea how many people sold rusty things online until I started looking for metal to rust myself for dyeing. I bought the whole alphabet plus some numbers and a few extra interesting shapes.

   

I soaked my fabric in vinegar, laid out the washers and the letters and then covered it with another layer of fabric. I made sure the top fabric made good contact with the metal. I love the subtle look of the metal showing through the wet fabric.

   

I also layered some printed fabrics (in a frisbee because I am a professional artist and use only the best, most professional equipment) with the letters and shapes I had left over.

It was a sunny day, so I put the tray and the frisbee in plastic bags and put them out on the porch in the sun. The iron was already oxidizing within a half hour. I left them for 5 hours and then opened them up to see how they looked.

So, how did they look? Dreamy!

Look at that delicious texture. And the printed silver still shows through the dye. I wasn’t very careful about the way I laid the fabric over the metal, so I ended up with some interesting folds and mirror images.

For the fabric I dyed specifically for the quilt, I put a piece of fabric under the metal and then on top, like a sandwich. The top piece of fabric got more air than the bottom, so the metal oxidized more (left image, below). It’s much darker, with less definition and texture. The fabric that was on the bottom (right image, below) has such great texture, but there were places where the metal didn’t affect the fabric at all, so some of the letters aren’t readable. I like both.

   

Below are the yellow printed fabrics I used. The left image was the top layer and the right was the layer on the bottom. So pretty!

    

I have one more piece of fabric to dye to finish the words I want to use in the quilt, and then I will figure out where I’m going with this whole thing. So much fun experimenting!