I'm so excited! All my attempts to rust on fabric in color have been dismal—although I now know many things that don’t work. The goal is/was to find a way to add color to rust-dyed fabric using little or no nasty chemicals, requiring little or no measuring, no boiling, mordant dips, etc.

After many months of frustrating disappointments, Barbara Matthiessen a longtime crafting buddy introduced me to Generation Green from Earth Safe Finishes. They have a complete line of artist’s quality paint and finishes, all made in the USA—and all using formulas with little or no volatile organic compounds in them. The packaging is made of recycled materials and is biodegradable and recyclable—and they donate 1% of their profits to Global Green USA.

The colorants, fabric medium, and gel media caught my attention immediately, because they work on fabrics. The example above is the blue colorant on a piece of rust-dyed cotton and the example below is on bleached muslin.

No measuring! No boiling! No nasty chemicals—or little dead creatures involved! No waiting! I mixed one part fabric medium to four parts water, mixed in a drop or two of the colorant and that’s it! Isn’t the texture yummy? I placed the wet fabric on a plastic drop cloth and it dried with the crystal-looking texture. KEWL!

I’ll post more photos as they are available, but this has such exciting possibilities for fiber artists, kids’ crafts—and is environmentally responsible.

No affiliation with the company; I just really like the product, the company, and their social responsibility!