[read Part two here] [read Part three here]
Last fall my sister, a fellow quilter, came for a visit and we did some rust dyeing. Our first attempt did not turn out very well so we tried again. The second time we worked a bit harder to keep the fabric in contact with our rusty items by adding some towel padding and binding strips torn from old sheets. One small towel (formerly used by my husband to wash his motorcycles) that I used to pad a rusty spade picked up a rust pattern I liked better than any on the fabric! 
So when I mulled my options for the Upcycle challenge I reached for my rusty wash-towel first, then tried to find things to go with it. Unearthing the bin holding old clothing, I found a pair of khaki shorts and a checked shirt of my son’s (I hope those shorts were outgrown and not here for mending). The shirt had a piece already cut from the tails, but I don’t remember what project I used it in.
I even found a scrap of old acrylic blanket to use for batting. My mom gave me the blanket many years ago and I used half of it for a design wall until we moved and I acquired a bigger wall. The other half had been chewed by squirrels when they took the blanket camping, so this piece was all I salvaged from the chewed half. 
Still looking for something not fabric, I dug out a jigsaw puzzle that was so horrible to do that I could not inflict it on anyone else and put it in my art-supplies bin. Also some paperclips and assorted odds and ends.