Decaying Fabrics

Recently I have been very busy playing around with natural fabrics (cotton, silk, line and muslin). You may ask why and it is because I have decided to age and decay fabrics as part of my recent All Saints project.  My plan is to promote the shop through more exciting and better interiors, therefore I want to create either dressing room curtains or a textile piece. So far I have used many exciting processes to ages my fabrics: 

1. Coffee and Tea staining 

2. Mark making with rusty objects 

3. Crumpling and dampening

4. Rubbing in dirt 

5. Burning with incense or cigarettes

6. leave out in the sun 

7. wash several times 

8. use coarse sandpaper 

9. rub black or brown shoe polish 

10. drag fabric along the ground

So far I have only tested a few out, however marking making with the rusty objects made the most beautiful patterns. If you are interested in doing this yourself you firstly need to find rusty objects such as nails and tools. You then wet the fabric and place the objects in a pattern of your choice. You can then wrap the fabric around the objects. Then you will need to keep the fabric moist with a mixture of vinegar and water. Then leave this for a day for a day or so, depending on how well your objects take to the fabric and how dark you would like the colour. 

Here are some pictures of my samples so far: 

There will be more tests soon :)