Blackberries, Copper and Rust

Well this was a very interesting experiment; I wanted to do more rust dyeing so I did some reading and found a very interesting article on-line (sorry, don't remember where as I read so much) anyway, I found that if you mix vinegar and salt and add some copper (in my case copper tubing) that any other metal you add after the copper has been sitting in the mix such as screws, paperclips, etc., will turn copper; something to do with the copper ions transferring.

This piece of silk began pink from the blackberry dyeing a few weeks back; the color was just okay nothing exiting - so I soaked it in vinegar, wrapped up some keys and pennies that had been treated in the copper/vinegar mix inside, tied it up and put it in the rusty water for a week or so covering it all with plastic.

I'm just amazed at how gorgeous this is - the pictures do not do it justice at all and capture only small sections of the interesting designs. I am considering listing it on Etsy after I have my fill of gazing at it for a while!