Save time and learn how to make and use a grainsack stripe stamp.

Free motion embroidery creates a lot of scrap threads. I don’t throw them out and incorporate them in my art work. Here are a few tips on how to reuse them.

Tell us about your relationship with plants and the Earth? My relationship with nature has really developed over the last 8-9 years since I started dyeing with plants. Before that point I can honestly say that I didn't pay a huge amount of attention to the plants growing around me. I just saw trees as general ‘greenery’ and didn't look at details in the way I do now. The last few years have been a gradual love affair with nature. I live in a busy town (for now, anyway) and searching for new plants to try in my dye pot has been a wonderful way to explore new places, and get to know the plants that were right on my doorstep all along. Within a two minute walk of my home I have alder trees (the cones make a rich golden caramel coloured dye), stinging nettles (they make a range of grey/green/tan shades depending on the time of year), a sequoia tree with cones that make a peachy tan colour, and countless other trees, herbs and flowers that can give us beautiful colours. I really enjoy trying to identify plants that are new to me, then learning about them and testing them in my dye pot. Once I’ve learnt about a new plant, it seems to follow me around and I spot it everywhere. It’s amazing how many wonderful plants there are right under our feet, but until we really look, we don’t notice them! This is what I explore in my natural dye book Botanical Colour at your Fingertips. I love encouraging other people to experiment with their local plants too. There is colour everywhere, just waiting to be discovered. I like looking at the in-between places that are often forgotten, such as collecting fallen camellia flowers in an alleyway and using them for bundle dyeing, plucking gorse flowers from the prickly bushes alongside the road, and the incredible array of

Tutorial 3 ECO PRINTING BASICS Note that these are my current practices. In your own research and experiments, you may well discover other processes that work well for you. Take what you can respon…

Proud to be myself. I am by profession not a fashion designer but like arts and crafts. Nature inspires my creation particularly plants. As mentioned in my last post I found the lemmon marigolds wonderful prints and addicted to it. This tunic printed mainly with those leaves and flowers as well crown daisy. Flowers and leaves are delicate with very pleasant fragrance. The day I went to the area of my studio. Such a leisure walk in the beach. It's a weekday with less people In short I am happy with this tunic prints "Less is more" is my motto. The "flowing movement" placement is what I always like. Prints of the lemmon marigolds and crown daisy are so bold. Front is linen, back and sleeves are wool blend, collar is viscose. Yellow prints from alum mordant for fabric and the plants. Prints outline and grey shades due to iron mordant. The sleeve placement of Lemmon marigolds leaves, flowers, crown daisy and oxalis. Same sorts of plants and geranium Prints of white from oxalis due to acid discharge from the plant The tunic is light and comfortable A nice moment sitting at the pier reading the poets on my art journal with my paper prints. Life is good, can't complain. This is the area Stanley where my tiny studio located. I always get inspired in the little bay. I am not a hard seller but sometimes got queries of how to do eco printing. If you like to do eco printing with basic to fabulous prints here is my on line shop for the instant download pdf tutorials, Basic English version, Russian version, fabulous version you can do the prints like this tunic. My passion for the lemmon marigolds printing still on. Another dress is being made. Will show after shoting. Thank you for stopping by, until next.

When it comes to fashion, we often focus on style, comfort, and the latest trends. But there's another vital aspect to consider – the fabrics we wear. Our clothing choices extend beyond aesthetics; they can significantly impact our overall well-being. In this post, we'll delve into the often-overlooked connection between the fabrics we wear and our health. We'll explore how different fabrics emit distinct frequencies that can affect us and why opting for natural, organic textiles is a choice tha

It's over a year since I first wrote a post about using an iron blanket. I remember doing more bundle dye experiments when all the leaves changed colour in 2017 and I did get closer to the iron blanket effects I hoped for. A couple of weeks ago, noticing some of the oak leaves were already falling, I managed to find the pieces of cloth I printed last year, but really couldn't bring to mind quite how I had done it. Unfortunately, last autumn I had little headspace to spare and wasn't blogging. To save me forgetting again, today I'm writing a reference blog about how I have now retraced my steps and moved a bit further forward. Taking the steps in order, first scour some natural fabric by washing it with soda ash to take off any oils, waxes or stiffeners. Next, mordant wool and silk with alum, cotton and linen with aluminium acetate. Then dye it by simmering the fabric in a plant dye bath. This picture shows linen, silk and wool pieces, all dyed with Dyers Chamomile flowers. Now the iron blanket. Home made iron acetate solution, made by leaving rusty metal in a mixture of water and vinegar for weeks or months, is inevitably of variable and unknown concentration. I'd say that in practice, the results of using the contents of my rust filled jam jar suggest my homemade solution is usually pretty weak. For the purpose of investigation, I made up a measured solution of ferrous sulphate, pouring 100ml boiling water on 10g of the powder and stirring, so that I would know 10ml contained 1g of iron. Using a syringe, I drew up 20ml and added it to a washing up bowl half full of water. By eye, that 2g of ferrous sulphate gave the bowl a very pale orange colour. My blanket fabric was a fairly thick cotton, cut from an old curtain. It was soaked in the bowl of iron solution for several hours and squeezed out just before using it. My dyed fabric had been dried without rinsing, straight from the dye bath. I put a piece of linen (half the leg of some loose trousers) to soak in plain water and collected a selection of leaves from the garden, plus oak and sycamore from the trees down the road. I unrolled some baking parchment on the table, smoothed out the wet dyed linen on its surface, laid out the leaves, some face down and some face up, then placed the iron blanket over the top. All the layers, baking parchment, dyed linen, leaves and iron blanket, were rolled up around a section of plastic drainpipe, then bound firmly with string. The completed bundle was stood on a trivet inside a very large pot with water in the bottom, the lid was put on and the pot was heated to the boil before turning the gas down low to keep steaming the bundle for two hours. I left it overnight to cool and next day, unrolled it. Below is a photo of the dyed linen and the iron blanket, laid out side by side. Not a ravishing success, but much can be learned from looking at it. As expected, the leaves varied in their affinity for iron, which I believe may be due to the amount of tannin each species contains. Most had made blacker shapes where the underside of the leaves faced the iron blanket than where the underside of the leaf had faced the dyed cloth. This effect showed up even more clearly once the iron blanket had dried out. What happened on the dyed linen is less obvious, though much more important. I decided that the central oak leaf in this photo had worked best as a resist by being laid with its underside facing the iron blanket, as the yellow is brighter than the adjacent oak leaves which had been laid with their undersides facing the linen. I had rather hoped that where the iron blanket had been in direct contact with the linen with no leaf in between, the iron would have modified the chamomile dye to a warm green. As you can see, the yellow actually went more of a dark khaki. Unexpectedly, the Japanese Maple and the ginkgo leaves seem to have sucked the yellow dye out of the linen. I had read people recommending both of these types of leaves in the past and been disappointed that I couldn't get any dye or iron dip print from my trees. I am delighted to discover that the damn things actually work by 'exhausting' other dyes :) The hardy geranium aka cranesbill leaves had left beautiful, if subtle prints, full of detailed edges and veins. I grow several varieties, because they make lovely prints in contact dye bundles when dipped in iron. In spring, some types will print with their own yellow dye. Sorry, I don't know the names of the different kinds, but this is what the plants look like at the moment. Anyway, since they will soon die back when the cold nights come, I thought I would include cranesbill leaves in the next test piece, this time a good silk scarf. I laid the leaves on densely, hoping for pale shapes from the exhaust effect of maple and ginkgo leaves, fine patterns from the cranesbill and bold yellow resist shapes from the oak. Unrolling the first turn of the bundle looked great. Unrolling more turns revealed much darker silk and far less clarity of leaf prints. Time for a cup of tea and a fag and a careful think. I decided that the baking parchment wasn't preventing iron from the blanket soaking through to the layers rolled underneath and there was just too much iron everywhere. First modification of the technique was to reduce the amount of iron. For my next silk scarf I used an iron blanket cut from a thin, worn out cotton bed sheet. It was soaked in the same washing up bowl of iron solution, but wrung out firmly after soaking. I had read before about people using layers of clingfilm in their bundles, but never fancied the idea. Clingfilm isn't biodegradable or reusable and anyway, I thought it might melt during the steaming and weld itself onto the bundle. Funny how buggering up an expensive piece of silk has changed my attitude, I felt quite ready to give cling film a go. After steaming, the bundle looked as though it had been shrinkwrapped. Happily, the clingfilm peeled off with no trouble. It had confined the iron from the blanket, allowing it to work only on the single layer of silk against which the blanket was pressed. With less iron available from the thin cotton blanket, the background colour looked much less gloomy, though you can see deeper lines where the string had squeezed the dyed silk most tightly. Taking away that shroud of darkness made it much easier to examine the actual leaf impressions. The ginkgo had had the most powerful exhaust effect though I could now see that the sycamore had also reduced the strength of the chamomile dye on the linen. With the clingfilm there to keep all the dye localised under the leaf, for the first time in my experience, the Japanese maple had left its own pink dye and the purple smoke bush had added a blueish green. Thick oak and fern leaves had acted purely as resists, keeping the iron blanket off the silk but neither exhausting nor adding anything to the dyed linen. I am truly delighted to have made a good iron blanket printed silk scarf. With less iron in it, even the effects on the iron blanket looked more interesting. Comparing the baking paper roll against the clingfilm, I shall have to weigh concerns about their relative biodegradabilty against my preference for sharp results. Anyone got a great idea for recycling steamed clingfilm?

Love Sumac! When you want reliable results with minimal use of additives, Eco printing with sumac gives great results...

Plant dyeing is my day job but I don’t often get to play with the dyes. This month I decided to shake things up a little and get some time off to just have fun. I got inspired after my last Dyeing with Plants workshop for the year. I saw my students experience modifiers’ magic and I felt an urge to try out some pattern

Natural Dyeing Tutorial. Learn how to use red cabbage to obtain beautiful purples, greens and blues with organic cotton yarn.

Autumn bears beautiful gifts for those looking for seasonal colors. Today, I'm sharing a natural dyeing tutorial. To dye linen pants I collected oak leaves. Alternatives for making grey are oak galls, alder cones, acorns, or black tea. These dyes contain high concentrations of tannins, which can be modified with iron.

(Or your second)Eco printing has been the rage for the past few years. The term minted by eco print guru India Flint has evolved at the speed of light.With it, it renewed the interest in all things concerning natural dyeing. Surely the quest for eco-friendly, sustainable, and home-made goods has been a contribution to the rapid increase of eco-printers around the globe.I think that the race of life has left many of us tired and in need to reconnect to nature. Foraging leaves and the mindfulness

Steeped in history and romance pomegranates have long been cultivated for their nutritious and delicious juice. The flowers are bright red and so beautiful that some fruitless varieties are grown for ornamental value. I've witnessed the fruit just dropping to the ground, providing food for animals - which is crazy to me because they're packed with useful properties beyond food, they're also a tannin rich dye.

There are so many wonderful dye plants to forage in fall. Check out this list to keep your dye pot supplied well after the end of summer.

Desde que mi amigo y colega Ramón A. me hizo un curso de tintes naturales, adaptado a mis necesidades y exigencias, no me lo puedo sacar de la cabeza, me quedé muy enganchado. la teoría ya la había estudiado, conocía el procedimiento, pero nunca pensé que fuese a tener algo tan atrayente, que nublase mi mente y en ocasiones no me dejase pensar con claridad. Estos últimos meses he estado investigando, tiñendo y jugando a extraer color de materias orgánicas comunes (helechos, zanahorias…) o específicas (rubia tinctorum, retama…), además de plantar un mini jardín de plantas tintoreas en la huerta de mi amiga Sabela, esto ya os lo contaré con más detalle que la naturaleza es muy caprichosa y comencé a plantar con la primavera muy avanzada, a modo de avance tengo la intención de plantar Isatis Tinctoria (hierba pastel), Phytolacca Americana, Tagetes, Reseda Luteola (gualda), Carthamus tinctorius (cártamo) y Equinacea, una variedad de plantas que el resultado en color sería un círculo cromático casi completo. Todas estas plantas son fácilmente adaptables al clima gallego, según me he informado, a mi favor tengo que decir que no es la primera vez que me transformo en granjero último modelo (y además también tuve una granja en Facebook, supongo que eso no cuenta…) Cada día que pasa controlo mejor todo el procedimiento, que en esencia no es complicado pero hay que tener ciertos factores en cuenta. He estado tiñendo Seda (habotai 8) y Lana Merino a 1 y 2 cabos, probando (post-)mordientes no tóxicos, ni contaminantes y tomando muchos apuntes! por ahora solo he probado con fibras proteicas y tengo pendiente meterme con las celulósicas (algodón y lino). Gracias a mis lecturas incansables sobre el tema, me he acercado al ECO_PRINT, por supuesto también lo he probado, y si los tintes son fascinantes, esta técnica es BRUTAL, y los resultados inesperados pero controlables! alguna gente le atribuye la invención de esta técnica a INDIA FLINT (artista textil, escritora y experta en tintes naturales) pero ella misma en su libro ECO COLOUR, dice que no ha inventado nada, que es una técnica que ya existía y que por ejemplo se utilizaba para teñir huevos de pascua, ella solo lo adaptó al textil! recomiendo la lectura del libro de INDIA FLINT, sobretodo si te interesan los tintes naturales, es un manual no muy teórico pero si práctico. Como siempre nuestro amigo Pinterest me ha ayudado a conocer el trabajo de otras personas que también han sentido fascinación por este mundo tan apasionante de los tintes naturales y he creado este tablero como una mini guía de recursos. Ahora estoy más centrado en la producción para la venta de productos con tintes naturales, haciendo pruebas piloto, desarrollando el concepto, planificando la producción… packaging, etiquetas y un largo etcétera, lo que más me sorprende es que de nuevo desee producir algo para su venta, lo había olvidado hace unos años cuando me centré en la formación como medio de vida, ya no me acordaba de la sensación tan maravillosa que produce crear algo de 0.

Ceviz, papatya, zerdeçal, üzüm, vişne renkli bir çok meyve ve sebzeyi kumaş boyamak için kullanabilir, doğal giysiler elde edebilirsiniz.

Le Tataki Zomé, une technique d'impression de fleurs et de plantes venue du Japon. Découvrez comment personnaliser textiles et papeterie naturellement et facilement vous même. Tuto, matériel, exemples... Tout ce que vous devez savoir sur ce loisir créatif se trouve dans cet article.

Have you ever tried extracting colors from plants? There are hundreds of plants bearing beautiful dyes, growing all around us. Yes, some plants are traditionally recognized as basic dye sources, but if you open your eyes and look around, you will find an abundance of color in front of your door. I made a list of plants local to me, but I strongly encourage you to try plants that grow around where you live. And living in a city is no excuse here! I live in a big city myself - but even in Berlin, Germany I found enough plants to make a full spectrum of color.

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Why cook/steam for hours?! My eco print processing microwave method yields great results and saves so much energy. See the full tutorial

Introductory notes: The search for hidden colours, forms and textures is for me the lure of eco dyeing and eco printing, and a form of art. Eco dyeing and eco printing are essentially direct contac…

One of my favourite plants to dye with in the spring is the stinging nettle – it’s one of the plants I most look forward to. The leaves give me a soft grey-green hue at this time of year (maybe you get a slightly different colour?) – the colour just feels so fresh and “alive”...

Our Fashion and Textiles team of two, Charlotte and Philippa, spent a recent Saturday natural dyeing, re-colouring samples and offcuts from their combined fabric collections. Philippa Grogan details their day of dyeing experiments.

Shibori is a Japanese term for methods of dyeing cloth by binding, stitching, folding, twisting, and compressing. In Japan, the earliest known example of cloth dyed with the shibori technique dates back to the 8th century where indigo…

I am slightly cheating with my local winter dyeplant series as I must admit there aren’t many spruce trees near where I live in London. Nevertheless they do exist in the UK and my dye experim…