The Air Conditioner Grill As Art

When we replaced the air conditioning/heating units at the CAAWS shelter, I took possession of the grill that sits over the air intake.  It was rusty and old.

Right up my alley.

I was playing on the internet this morning and saw on Pinterest that someone had used tea and vinegar and had rusted some fabric.  I have used vinegar to rust stuff, and then painted it with tea.  The tea acts as a mordant and changes the rust color to grey.

So I experimented with the tea and the vinegar together rather than separately applied.

Ohhhhhh..........Dark!  The fabric was a heavier muslin called Economy Cloth.  It is used on the backing of  a lot of modern quilts.

The tea/vinegar did stain the Economy Cloth a golden color.

And my driveway a dark color.

When I took the grate off an hour later it looked like this.  I was thinking, oh my, what a hot mess!

Although I can think of some ways to handle dark.

You can see the tea mordant made it rust grey.  I am hoping that the next time I go to rust it that it will be ripe and ready for some golden goodness.

This is the fabric after I washed it out in the sink.  It is still wet so it will still change in appearance a bit.

I love the lines.

Now.

What do you see in that hot mess?


I am linking up with Nina Marie at Creations.  Check out what others are doing this week, you will love it!  She is talking abou Craft vs Art.

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?