Marbling and rusting, Ellen and Margherita, March 2014
(any notes I have added that are not tutor’s, I have given links and also edited for what we need or did on the day)
General requirements
Dyeing clothes – because any rusting splashes won’t be washing out!!
Rubber Gloves – cleaning heavy type, rather than disposable types, as the rust will
stain your hands – some a nice smokers finger tip colour others a black grease look
Lots of clean up cloths / Paper Towels or spare fabric (these will make a dyed multi
colour piece)
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Chemicals, where to buy and prices.
Alum
Pool shops
$20 @ 2kg
Salt
supermarket
$2 @ 2kg
Tea bags
supermarket
$4 @ 200
Cornflour
supermarket
$1 @ 400gm
Wallpaper paste
wallpaper shops
$13.99 100gm
Ferrous Sulphate
(Sulphate of Iron)
garden centre
$ 8 @ 2.5k
Caustic Soda
Bunnings
$ 8 @ 500gm
Potassium Permanganate
(Conndy’s crystal)
TradeMe
$10.50 inc post @ 150gm
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SALES
We are selling small bags of the left over chemical – as you only need small amounts
out of large and often expensive bags.
Wallpaper paste
$3 @ 60gm (sold re Margherita) = 2 tray for marbling
Ferrous
.80c @ 250gm = 1 bucket for rusting
Caustic
.70c @ 40gm = 3 bucket for rusting
Potassium Permanganate .70c @ 10gm = 3 bucket of dye and some pouring mix
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Depending what you will be using the dyed fabric for, you may find it reacts to the
colour better and is more colourfast by treating with Alum before dyeing.
Background
http://chemistry.about.com/od/moleculescompounds/f/What-Is-Alum.htm
Uses of Alum
Alum has several household and industrial uses. Potassium alum is used
most often, although ammonium alum, ferric alum and soda alum may be
used for many of the same purposes.
purification of drinking water as a chemical flocculant
in styptic pencil to stop bleeding from minor cuts
deodorant "rock"
pickling agent to help keep pickles crisp etc
http://chemistry.about.com/od/foodchemistryfaqs/f/Is-Alum-Safe.htm
Alum Health Concerns
All forms of alum can cause irritation of the skin and mucous membranes.
Breathing alum can cause lung damage.
http://quilting.about.com/od/fabricdyeing/ss/marble_fabric_6.htm
Treat Fabric with Alum
1. Mix 3 Tbsp. of alum per litre hot water. Make enough solution to cover your fabrics.
2. Stir thoroughly to dissolve the crystals. Allow the solution to cool.
3. Pour the alum solution in a bucket and add fabrics. Wearing gloves, swish fabric to
make sure it is saturated. Allow to soak for up to 20 minutes.
4. Wearing gloves, wring fabric to remove as much alum as possible. Dry in dryer.
5. Iron pieces and cut to size for your marbling tray.
Alum Cautions
Alum is corrosive and will destroy cloth if not washed out soon.
Marble fabric as quickly as possible after treatment. I use within 1-2 days.
You'll rinse fabrics and heat set paints as you work, but until they are
washed, fabrics contain traces of alum.
If you heat-set the paints on your ironing board, some of the alum will
transfer to the cover and will eventually destroy it.
More importantly, if not washed out, traces of alum could be transferred to
other fabrics ironed on the same board.
Set up a temporary ironing board or protect the regular board cover.
Eg cover with plastic and then waste towels etc so no moisture
passes through. Wash towels etc after each session
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Marbling
General notes
Colours are watered down to the consistency of milk
Acrylic paint worked for some and for some Dye-Na-Flow Fabric Paint worked better.
Some fabrics worked better than others (Marilyn was using old sheets and had
wonderful results
In other words it’s all trial and error based on your fabric and colour products.
Also you don’t need to keep a clean tray, just keep adding colours – we had some
amazing results as old colours were stirred up and contacted with the fabric. Even
when the surface of the size showed not much detail. Of course if you want a particular
result, keep the tray clean.
General Requirements
Plastic Ruler or ice cream lid or cardboard – for scraping and flattening cream
Pick up paint - Eyedroppers, or Pipettes or syringes, plastic teaspoons, paint brush
Move paint – Comb, hair pick, toothpicks, skewers, chopsticks, paint brush handle
Buckets/ ice cream containers - for rinsing tools as you work, for carrying your wet
fabric between work area and drying area.
Tray - (like a kitty litter tray, type of size) – for the other 2 types of marbling.
Lace, doilies, card/paper to cut up, etc, –to dye AND to use as resists in marbling
Colours
Acrylic paint
food colouring
paint powders
inks
Nail polish
Chalked – scraped on to the size
fabric paints
Finishing fabric
There were different ways of finishing for each technique and these have been listed.
HINT: To ensure all excess paint / ink etc is removed, place fabric between 2 pieces of
paper or fabric and iron in a circular motion over the fabric area.
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Shaving cream Marbling
http://www.thechocolatemuffintree.com/2012/03/shaving-cream-marbled-rainbows.html
Materials needed
 Plastic sheet to cover surface and for spreading cream
 Shaving cream (non scented / not the gel kind)
 Paint or food coloring
Directions
Spray a liberal amount of shaving cream – less at first, you can always add more.
Spread it out evenly but does not need to be flat.
Squirt various colours on top of the shaving cream.
Gently swirl the paint to create a marbled effect. Don’t over mix!
Elaine’s cream
Lay paper or fabric on top of the shaving cream mix.
Press it down all over, you will see the colour saturate the fabric, then lift straight up.
Set it aside for a few minutes, then use a ruler or other type scraper to scrape all the
shaving cream and paint off the fabric/paper.
Allow the paper to dry. Rinse gently. Fabric is very slightly stiff and colour holds well.
Margherita’s marbled fabric – using acrylic paints –
fabric 2x size of cream – lay ½ on cream – lifted and left it for a couple of minutes –
then folded other ½ over to lift off excess cream – left the sandwich for a couple of
minutes – unfolded and scraped off cream
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Wallpaper paste size
1. 2 tblsp paste powder to 3 Litres water
2. Mix well and leave overnight or at least 4 hours.
3. (we used double the amount of powder –original was 1tblsp - as we found
the original recipe was too watery)
4. Drop colours on top of size
5. Create pattern
6. Lay fabric or paper on. Make sure fabric is pressed on to the colour. When
colours show thru the fabric gently lift off and lie flat on plastic.
7. We used other fabric to press on to the first sheet to soak up excess size.
8. Some instructions said to gently wash off the size but if anyone has any
ideas or results let me know.
9. We had no instructions on how to treat the fabric, so again if anyone has
any ideas or results let me know.
Margherita’s first try with the original recipe
Marilyn’s, with the
double recipe, showing first fabric and the second piece, used to remove excess paste.
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Cornstarch and salt size
Margherita also made a cornstarch and a salt size – but we ran out of time to try them,
so she used them at home – results follow recipes.
Cornstarch
http://www.hometrainingtools.com/two-marble-paper-projects/a/1848/
Create a size –combine 1/4 cup (2 oz) cornstarch with 1/4 (~60 ml) cup cold
Stir till it's well mixed, add 2 cups (~475 ml) cups hot water.
Mix until the solution is syrupy and pour into a shallow pan.
Marble. Lay out colours, carefully lay the paper, into the size, smoothing it out so
that no bubbles remain. Leave it for 30 seconds or so.
5. Lift the paper from the solution and rinse off any excess size with a gentle stream
of water.
6. Clean off the size or just add more colours
1.
2.
3.
4.
Salt
1. Mix salt with water till water wont dissolve anymore salt
The google suggestion said it uses heaps of salt so I put 2 kg into a ¾
bucket of water. 1.1kg didn’t dissolve, so 900gm does an almost full
bucket.
So my instructions would be
2. ¼ bucket hot water and put ½ cup salt in
3. Stir till dissolved
4. Keep adding salt till no more dissolves
5. Add more hot water and then more salt and stir
6. Repeat these steps till you have the amount of salt size you need
7. You don’t need much size in the tray but I found it got dirty very fast. So change
it often. Marble in the usual way.
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Results: Overall, maybe it may have worked better if I had treated my fabric with
Alum?? I tried 3 types of fabric, a waffle textured surface, calico, and what I thought
was a sateen but maybe it was silk? by the way it worked in the salt size?.
Cornstarch: I didn’t think cornstarch would work, as recipe just resulted in a cloudy
mix. So I cooked some of it & tried that too
Cooked and watered down till a watery thick size
– lots of size on the fabric and hard to remove without washing, which
washed most paint off as well
– maybe scrapping off the size (like the cream) would work??
size
worked lovely with nail polish
fabric
washed
I included this picture to show the lovely
marbling – that totally disappeared when I got
rid of the size (and this was with what I
thought was good fabric?)
Uncooked
– better and less size on the fabric.
Very stiff fabric unless washed well and again most colour washed out
– Maybe leaving on size till dry and ironing from the wrong side to secure
the colour before washing may help??
strong colours on the size
Washed fabric - image doesn’t show full
colour but still only a pastel shade
Salt:
Loved the results. Easy to do with no sticky drips everywhere.
Colour lasted after rinsing but not as strong – the last photo doesn’t show true
colours
Fabric slightly stiff but better after rinsing
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Rusting 3 ways
1) 3 buckets
2) 2 buckets
3) 1 bucket
Tea // caustic // iron
Tea caustic // iron
Potassium permanganate
General notes
Results change with time as more of the chemicals get mixed - as you move your
fabric from bucket to bucket.
General Requirements AND cautions
Wear heavy gloves eg cleaning gloves not the thin disposable type. All liquid
chemicals and fabric WILL dye your skin – for varying amounts of time. This includes
handling them on the clothes line.
Dry chemicals – use dust mask and long sleeves and gloves when handling. They
have a light dust with them and this can go everywhere. So wash down any surfaces
when you are finished and rinse out any cloths etc to remove any dust (before putting
cloths in with other washing.)
Buckets/ ice cream containers - for carrying your wet fabric, to prevent dyeing drips
Pick up liquid - Eyedroppers, or Pipettes or syringes, plastic teaspoons, paint brush
Finishing fabric
There were different ways of finishing for each technique and these have been listed.
3 buckets
Tea // caustic // iron
http://essellesbabble.blogspot.co.nz/2006/04/rust-solution-dyeing-tutorial.html
A range of rusty reds / grey blues.
Cut material into sizes of fabric art you want to make or small pieces for samples of
what all the mixes make.
Samples – to see what each combination makes.
BUT as you move fabric between the buckets you are slightly changing the
chemicals so any results may not be able to be truly repeated.
Initial 1 corner – if doing it in a group, so you know which fabrics are yours
Number each piece, so you know what you did.
Below is a list of all the options.
Record what is in each bucket eg 1 Tea 2 Caustic 3 Iron
1) dip in 123
2) dip in 231
3) dip in 312
4) dip in 132
5) dip in 213
6) dip in 321
7) dip in 1 drizzle 23
8) dip in 2 drizzle 13 9) dip in 3 drizzle 12 10) dip in 1 drizzle 2
11) dip in 2 drizzle 1 12) dip in 3 drizzle 1 13) dip in 1 drizzle 3
14) dip in 2 drizzle 3
15) dip in 3 drizzle 2
16) drizzle 1 drizzle 2 drizzle 3
17) drizzle 1 drizzle 3 drizzle 2
18) drizzle 1 drizzle 2
19) drizzle 1 drizzle 3
20) drizzle 2 drizzle 1 drizzle 3
21) drizzle 2 drizzle 3 drizzle 1
22) drizzle 2 drizzle 1
23) drizzle 2 drizzle 3
24) drizzle 3 drizzle 1 drizzle 2
25) drizzle 3 drizzle 2 drizzle 1
26) drizzle 3 drizzle 1
27) drizzle 3 drizzle 2
Margherita’s samples.
I only did 15 of 3 bucket and 3 of 2 bucket. The photo’s don’t do them justice as they
are lovely.
3 Bucket order 1 Tea 2 Caustic 3 Iron
2 Bucket order 1 Tea/Caustic 2 Iron
Above is samples 1 – 9 in order of 3 bucket
Above is samples 10 – 15 in top 2
options list.
rows. Bottom row is 1, 2, 5 of 2 bucket
below options list.
All fabrics and papers work well.
50 tea bags
Ferrous Sulphate 250grams
Caustic Soda 1 heaped tblsp
Wear all protective gear

1) Soak 50 tea bags in 2 Litres boiling water, stir till all wet and stewing

2) Fill bucket with 5 litres hot (not boiling) water. Add Ferrous Sulphate and stir
till dissolved.

3) Fill bucket with 2 litres water add Caustic Soda and stir till dissolved.
Dip your fabrics into each of the baths in any of the ways listed above. Squeeze out
and let dry.
You can squeeze the liquid out between dips or leave it saturated - each will give
different effects.
Rusting works best if your fabric is allowed to dry slowly.
Ironing your fabric (but NOT with your good iron) also helps the colours to 'stay'.
The longer you leave your fabric before washing, the better the colour (a week or more
is good)
Once your fabric is dry/set simply wash it out using your regular detergent. This
softens them up and removes all residue.
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2 buckets
Tea caustic // iron
http://purplemissus.blogspot.co.nz/2008/06/alternative-rust-dyeing.html
Samples
Initial 1 corner – if doing it in a group, so you know which fabrics are yours
Number each piece, so you know what you did.
Below is a list of all the options.
Record what is in each bucket eg 1 Tea/Caustic 2 Iron
1 dip in 12
4 dip in 2 drizzle 1
2 dip in 21
5 drizzle 1 drizzle 2
3 dip in 1 drizzle 2
6 drizzle 2 drizzle 1
50 tea bags
Ferrous Sulphate 250grams
Caustic Soda 1 heaped tblsp
Wear all protective gear

1) Soak 50 tea bags in 2 Litres boiling water, stir till all wet and stewing. Cool and
add Caustic Soda.

2) Fill bucket with 2 litres hot (not boiling) water. Add Ferrous Sulphate and stir
till dissolved.
Use same way as 3 bucket steps
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1 bucket
POTASSIUM PERMANGANATE
http://www.doveoriginalstrims.com/dyeingandtintinglacewithpotassiumpermanganat
Hand Painting and Dyeing Lace and Fabric
- deep violet/purple when wet, dries, oxidation to a rich gold brown
It’s permanent and requires no fixing. Simply rinse well and allow to dry.
((Note: I left mine on the line till dry, but then it rained and by the time I got to the
line it had got wet and turned purple again?? Not sure if that means it isn’t
permanent – I would test this again before using it on anything going to be wet))
NOTE: Potassium permanganate crystals are toxic if swallowed & irritates skin in large
quantities or undiluted crystals.
Do not dump it into your septic or city water system.
My chemist says with lots of water should be fine to tip out? But also said could tip into
the garden.
Fabric will be several shades lighter when it is dry.
Bucket fill about 2/3s hot tap water, add ¼ tsp potassium permanganate stir till crystals
completely dissolved.
In a smaller container fill 1 – 2 cups hot water, add ¼ tsp potassium permanganate stir
till crystals completely dissolved.
This second container of dye will be used for 'painting' or accenting your tinted fabric.
Wet fabric, submerge your item in the larger container of dye.
Leave it until the colour is 2-3 shades deeper than what you want in the final colour.
Remove fabric - use the small container dye with a paintbrush/spoon to add deeper
accents. It will only take a minute or so to get a rich brown.
Rinse well and allow to dry. Or dry then rinse.
More notes etc from the site
The hotter the water that you use, the faster the dye will take. Remember that your
lace will be several shades lighter when it is dry. Polyester doesn't take dye well; I use
only rayon, silk, etc. I especially love the look of silk dupioni fabric over dyed with
potassium permanganate.
The lace with blackish highlights shown in the photo was created by using watered
down black acrylic paint to further darken small sections of the lace
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More bits
http://www.knifenetwork.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-15258.html
This stuff is real interesting. You can't go by the color you see when you first put it on.
You need to let it dry. My favourite method right now is to apply a thin coat ..let it dry
completely. .. and check the colour. If it is not quite dark enough, I apply another thin
coat.
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Another option?? Let me know if you try it.
http://www.woodworking.org/WC/Garchive01/3_27colorants.html
Potassium dichromate darkens wood (my note? Fabric?). The effect is somewhat like
the browning of tannins with iron acetate. Potassium dichromate is toxic. Application is
the same as with iron acetate, let it dry, then wash it off. Mix about 1 tsp per quart of
cold water (or follow the label for "Bichromate of Potash") for the working solution.
Repeat the process until no further darkening occurs. The reason for going to the end
point is that it isn't easy to get an intermediate color that is even.
You must wear gloves and protective gear!
Bichromate of potash (potassium dichromate by another name) is available from local
pharmacies, depending on local regulations.
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