SueCS textiles: Naturally Dyed Workshop achieved

At last I have managed to run the first Naturally Dyed Workshop. I had five students who were very keen to learn how to dye fabric and thread with natural dyes.

It was a work in progress for me and for them, as although I had set a timed plan, I did not factor in the very long time it would take to prepare the mordant and heat it for the required time. The little electric hob cookers I had sourced, although new, did not produce enough constant heat to boil the contents of the pots, especially when full of fabric.

That was also the problem bringing the dyes to boil quickly enough, for the ingredients to produce sufficient dye colour.

However we did manage to produce some really nice dyed fabric, with silk, wool and calico achieving some beautiful deep shades. I think with sufficient time the cotton would have also worked well.

We used logwood chippings and madder roots, which I had already soaked in water overnight in an old pair of tights in separate pans (extremely difficult to transport to the venue-I had to drive very slowly & try to avoid the potholes-in the rush hour there were a few annoyed drivers behind me).

The brazil wood was in powder form and the weld was in dried flower form, & neither needed soaking- however I think the weld would benefit from being soaked before hand, as boiling point was hardly reached giving poor results.

The logwood, madder and brazil wood worked very well.

The onion skins also worked well and students had great results.

We also tried coffee & tea in which the fabric was just left to soak slowly, again I think the fabric should have been laid in sooner to give stronger results and perhaps even put to simmer in pans.

There are a few things I would definitely change if I ran this workshop again,

I would wash & mordant the fabrics before hand, This would mean I would however have to give each student the same amount of my own thread & fabric to be divided out at the end, this would cut down the time issue and ensure there were no disagreements about students getting their own fabric back!!!! Although students marked their bits of fabric with marker pen, some of the marks could not be made out and if the logwood(purple) had created a very strong shade, the marks could not be seen at all.

Obviously I would have to factor the cost of the fabric and threads into the costings.

Anyway hopefully most of the ladies were happy, as they had handouts, inspiration and some samples- which I did suggest could go into a sample book with notes for future use.

here are some photos of the day, only one of me as i take a terrible photo & definitely need to go on a diet!!!