The start of this year has been confusing, strained, overwhelming and draining for some of us. To be able to see the sun through the clouds is a great skill, one that you have to practice and be reminded of all the time. Being surrounded by ever-changing nature we are reminded that storms come and go. We are reminded of the resilience of the land when it springs back to life. We will see a little more light, feeding us and giving us the energy to continue. We reflect on all of these feelings when we come together as a creative and social group.
The Makers Group carve out a few hours of time each week to honour the creativity within us all and reflect in nature. During February we have been focusing on creating natural dyes and inks from plants that we can grow. We were all so pleased with the vibrant and diverse colours we were able to make in collaboration with nature. We used a Japanese technique called Shibori, to create variations of colour and pattern on our textile.
We scoured the fabric, to wash it of anything it had been treated with during the manufacturing process. We prepared the fabric with a mordant, to help the dye be absorbed into the fabric, and to stick.
The group members folded, bound, stitched, gathered and clamped the fabric using different tools and methods. The aim of this process is to create areas of the fabric that will be resistant to the dye and left its original colour, or less saturated than the other areas of fabric that are more exposed.
We created two dyebaths, one using onion skins from local veg farm Shillingford, and one using cosmos, grown locally by our creative practitioner Sophie Holt. OrganicARTS are in the process of creating our own dye garden so we can begin to grow these dye plants ourselves.
Brown onion skins create deep yellows and oranges, and the purple cosmos creates sage green tones. We also used our Indigo dye bath for deep and vivid blues.
The group members took turns to plunge their fabrics into the indigo vat, this dye process happens almost instantly, with the colour turning from green to blue as you remove the fabric from the vat and its exposed to oxygen. The rest of the fabrics were heated for an hour in each of the dye baths.
Some of the members chose to combine two dyes on their fabric. Using the fabric dyed orange in the onion skin bath, they changed which parts of the fabric were exposed to the dye and then dunked them into the indigo vat. This process created gorgeous green colours and unique patterns.
The process of unfolding the fabrics, to see what we had created, was like unwrapping little presents! It bought us so much joy to see the patterns and colours our experiments resulted in. As each maker unwrapped their gift we sat and watched and exclaimed at each one, before hanging in on our washing line to dry. The space was filled with ‘Oooooo’s and ‘Ahhhhhh’s, congratulating each other on what had been created.
Later in the year we will work on sewing these fabrics into various creative projects and products.
If you are interested in these products, or public courses on natural dying then sign up to our mailing list here to be the first to find out.
