Natural Dye Workshop

July 11, 2005

Over the weekend I took a two-day natural dye workshop. It’s kind of a local thing, the Springfield Fiber Artists get together every summer to do a dye workshop lead by one of the members, and Marty did a great job this year showing us what she learned at the Missouri Fiber Guild workshop.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but I really had a great time. We used natural dye extracts on lots of different types of silk, and I was most interested in the effects using different physical resists. Above I’m experimenting with binder clips, rubber bands, and pebbles.

This cloth was been previously dyed in brazilwood, and then bound up with pebbles and dipped into a dye pot of logwood.

And here’s the result, my favorite!

On the left I used clothes pins to make the little “firefly” dots, then did multiple gradiate dips into pink, red, and orange. On the right, I dyed a piece of silk in osage orange to get that fantastic yellow color, then folded and clamped with binder clips, and dipped in orange.

This piece I used clothes pins, then did multiple folds and dips in pink, orange and red. I should turn it on its side and call it “Tequila Sunrise.”

More experiments with wrapping and twisting cloth around wine bottles and then dipping into various dyes. Oooh, I want to do more of this!

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