Elevated Running - sounds like a name for a quilt!

Al part of my "leap into health" program, I had a calcium channel scan last week.  It is to determine if there are any blockages in the vessels and veins around the heart,  The Cardio doc called me personally.

Which is scary, because they never do that unless it is really.....really bad news, right?

But he said they I was 100% clear anything!  So that was good.  

In the genetic pool of Parental DNA I must have gotten my heart from my mother and my ability to store fat an from my father.  My mother was skinny skinny and had no heart issues.  My father tended to overweight with lots of heart and cholesterol issues.  I got his migraines, and lets hope I didn't get my mother's Alzheimer genes.

Today I have a treadmill stress test.  I am sure they will want me to run, which is dangerous for me since I have Meinuers Disease which makes me unstable.  Hence the fact that the lst time I ran, I fell and needed 2 knee surgeries.  

Elevated running is not in my future.

The other day I wanted to know if I could rust a piece of cotton batting.  Here are the results.  

I thought I had rusted two pieces, but it turns out I lonely rusted one.

So, Yes, it can be done.   And it give the fabric a lot of texture.  I loved the way the striations fall on the batting.  

And there is a new technique I want to try , but it may have to wait till I get back from Germany..

I was attempting to take some photos of the boys, but all I seem to get is noses.  

What, mom? looks.  

And I can say the Story Time Adventure was a good one. that we will repeat.  Frank took Sawyer to the library for a scheduled Story Time reading for kids his age.  He seemed to have a great time.

Yesterday, when his  dad came to get him, he was riding his tricycle, still going full steam.  Then we all came inside and relaxed before dinner.  He is surely a busy busy boy!

 

What happened?

I had am uplifting and inspiring post ready to go and when I pushed PUBLISH the computer and internet ate it.

So here is a less than inspiring post with some great pictures.

I was personally inspired to rust some fabric by (click here)Carol of Quilted Fabric Art......I always want to say Quilted Fiber Art because I think of her as a great fiber artist.

So I pulled the first one out of the vinegar package last night.

Here is the second one I did.  You can see the sawblade I used for the overall color and I poked nails through the fabric.  I think the sawblade sort of overwhelmed the whole piece, but I am not complaining AT ALL!!!!!
 

The rust always thins a bit with the stopping process then the wash with Dawn process.  And then it lightens as it dries.  So you can begin to really see the nail marks on the wet piece I have hung out to dry.  

Suzette of Swooze's Quilts And Tall Tales (yes, she is actually one of the few women taller than me!)  inspired, or rather GUILTED me into finishing some of the 20 quilts I had in the To Be Quilted pile before I strated any new ones.  So here is the tribute I am paying to her, a quilting finish.  

This is from oh, 10 years at least.  The doilies are from Frank's mother, she was a prolific doily maker.  And this quilt will go to our Nephew Shannon's daughter.  His father Gene was Frank's brother who died when he was 49.  

She needs a bit of her Great Grandmother's stuff.  This will be exciting for her to have.

Perfect Rust

Remember that bag of nails I scored at Habitat Restore?

Got me some Economy Cloth and drew a square.  A bit off center, because, I am not always not middle of the road.

Added some nails to the square

This is the jumble of nails 

Yeah, I used my pyrex casserole dish.  A metal pan would have rusted, right?  And I wanted only the nail marks.  So don't tell Frank, OK.

It took two days for the nails to rust.  And they didn't do it well, I was kinda disappointed.  

I changed my mind when I rinsed out the fabric with saline.  The corners were stiff and I spent a lot of time scrubbing the edges.


It dried beautifully.  I like the controlled rusting.  Now I want to go to some resale shops and see if I can find some rusty tools.  I wish I knew someone who had a machine shop, now that would be cool.  Or a shipyard....oh yeah.  Rusty ship stuff.

Yes, my husband represents several machine shops but I have never been able to get him to haul rusty compressor parts home......

I am linking this up with Nina Marie at her Creations blog Off the Wall Fridays.  This is certainly off the wall rusting!  She talks about Nancy Zeiman and others link up to show their stuff.

Art Haul at Habitat ReStore

NOTE:  I am linking up with  Free motion by the River

 We have two Habitat ReStore locations here in Baton Rouge.  I love them both.  We bought a lot of stuff from there when we were flipping the houses.

They have an Art Auction every spring.  Jennifer issues $25 gift certificates to anyone who wants to participate.  You shop in the stores and create art with some things you buy.

The art then gets donated to the Art Auction and sold to build houses.

So I went shopping.  I had $25 burning  hole in my pocket.

Frank was the one who saw this fabulous frame.  It looks oriental, right?  Perfect for my Japanese Tea Bag piece.  I will decide whether it will go into the auction or I will keep it, later.  I want it, but it is perfect for the auction.

It was $3




Now, this is what I wanted to do last year, but was involved with the flood aftermath.  This year the perfect chair presented itself.  For $5 no less!

No, this is not hashish.  It is a bag of rusty nails!

Only I would want rusty nails, right?  Buck fifty for the three pounds of nails.  Got big plans for these guys.

 This is a copper thing.  No idea what they used them for, but I can see the copper becoming a mordant with rusty stuff and creating great circle stains on fabric.  Yes!

Now I have so many ideas!





And I found a Reindeer bib for Sawyer, or someone who dribbles.

I also got 3 packages of paint brushes, two nice paintbrushes and a pack of foam brushes.  Can you guess what the total for all this was?

I got 15% off for being over 55 and the whole bill was $16.58!

I could have gotten the chandelier I was lusting after!

Here is the rusting I did yesterday.  I used some smaller pieces and actually rusted it twice because the first one was not heavily marked.  This is not great but it is better.

I did see that I can do a leaf printing in the center and maybe double the impact for both rusting and leaf printing!

I am excited to get started on some ideas for the  Art Auction pieces.  I wonder how much they raise each year.  Let me see if I can find out.

Rusting Results

I decided to open the rusty stuff this afternoon.  I was rewarded.

(my keybord has decided not to type a's tody)

And I decided to do  second post to Nina Marie's Off the Wall.  

I love rusting things.  In this package I had a saw, a wiper blade part, some rebar and a few bottle caps.  Oh and  random bent wire.

You can see everything here in the finished piece.  Now I need to decide what to do with the last few pieces I have done.

the whole cloth- about 1/4 yard of the Ecology Cloth

Saw blade and wire

saw blade that was in second fold

this looks so wonderful, this is the serrated edge of the saw

One half

The other half

I can see the bottle cap and the metal piece.  

That dark piece is the wiper blade piece.

It is a wonderful piece of fabric!

Rusting During Our Afternoon Tea

My brilliant cohorts in this fiber group are totally geniuses!!!!!

When I told them I had been rusting, they all lit up and nearly at once said, TEA! in unison.

So after gleaning the info I needed to embark on the next step of my journey, I got back from the grocery and made my Signature Ultra Delicious Spaghetti Sauce for the chicken and brown rice noodles we are having for dinner.  I went to work.

This piece was simple to do yet spectacular! I will be linking up to Nina's off the wall Friday. Check out what others are doings as well

my favorite part

Second rusting

Already rusted fabric from the second rusting was used.  these had a different pattern to them because I intentionally spread the pieces around to separate them.  The rusting was more intense.



I got a family sized tea bag from the pantry and put it into a cup of water.
 I heated the duo in the microwave.  (It did not impart voices or advice to me while it was working however.)

I then put the tea bag on a corner of the piece.  Very interesting.  The tea ran along lines of the rust in the fabric!  Interesting, yes?

I let it sit for mayvbe a minute, and rinsed out the tea.  the change was amazing.  I loved it  so much I just said what the hell and plunged the entire FQ into the cup with the tea and the tea bag.  I let it sit for another 2 minutes or so.  I was eager to see what it was doing, it was all dark in there.

See my cute and sexy shoes?

And this is the result. It is the color of the pavement of my patio!

Hole in the fabric by the Idiot Child

Of course, it is wet, so it is drying HIGH on the fence so my Idiot Child doesn't put more holes in it.

Pre dyeing


                  Post dyeing  Is this not awesome and totally rad?

Heron Rust vs. T Rex

Today I am taking a class from Cynthia Rispone.  I cut out half the brown and green batik and hand dyes FQs and am pretty sure it will do for the class.  I know we will not have a chance to do all 18 pairs of blocks in one sitting.

Nonetheless, I am happy being here!

When we were in Calgary, the beginning of the most beautiful place I have ever been, we went to the Calgary Zoo.  This guy is a resident at the Zoo.  And he reminds me of this Rusty Heron I am trying to rust.

 If you remember, we left it like this:  rusting on the cement bench in the Japanese Rock Pond.  But the next morning both the rock and the heron and the material were all on the ground.  Dastardly dog McGee had pulled the whole thing down during the night.  I reset everything the next morning.

But I need to wrap the cloth in plastic to keep it from drying out so it can rust.

I just took the piece and put the last rusty pieces on it, wrapped it all up with rubber bands.  And put it all in a plastic bag.

It is now sitting overnight.  Again,  Out of reach.  Maybe.