a weekend full of cotton dyeing

I'm back from teaching a 3 day-workshop at a friend's studio 400 km north of here. My friend is a felter and natural dyer and wanted to offer more natural dyeing workshops in here studio to diversify her portfolio and asked me at the beginning of the year to teach one.

In one of my earlier lives I was a teacher in adult education. First at university, later at a school for the reintegration of (mostly long-term) unemployed people. In another life, I was also a stage actress and director. But stage fright in both lives never left me, on the contrary, it grew so big and it became so scary that I had to give up both jobs. Getting back to teaching a life workshop was a bit of a risky game but I had to try. (I taught some online workshops over the last few years, mostly in the online guild of weavers spinners and dyers, but that's not the same as standing in front of the participants.)

And it was so much fun. No stage fright at all, I was exhilarated and the participants were wonderful and the weather was great and ... in short, I am a happy camper again and quite confident to get back on that horse.And no, I won't get back into acting again, this is for other people.

Let's see what we did these 3 days ;o)

 

all different colours

 

 

We dyed linen, ramie and cotton fabrics and yarns with onion skins (red and yellow/brown), madder, cochineal, oak bark, oak leaved, walnut, and later with logwood and rhamnus berries and we bundled flowers.

 

flower bundles

bundled flowers in steeping bath.

 

And the result:

 

flower prints from the bundles

tagetes, hibiscus, carrot green, coreopsis and dahlias

 

 

 

the green of tagetes heads leave blueish spots

The disadvantage of a 3 day workshop is time. You don't have enough time to take it slow. So you always tell the participants they should take their time at home and let those bundles sit and steep for a week or longer.

 

 

oak bark and a happy teacher

At least oak bark shows some very nice results even after only 3 days.

 

 

linen and cotton yarns for stitching

onion skin, madder, cochineal and walnut

 

 

samples and a ombre dyed linen shirt in onion skin and madder root

 

We dyed lots of samples, made some nice experiments with ironwater (iron acteate) combined with lemon jiuce and we even painted with logwood.

 

painting with thickened logwood the yellow spots are from lemon juice

 

fixing the colour in a steam pot

 

just logwood and lemon juice

 

old clothes in new colours

 

The participants went home with some old clothes in new colours.

 

some cochineal samples

 

and a happy teacher

And since I am very courageous right now, my next workshop will begin next monday. This time, indigo dyeing ;o)