Elaine Duncan

This was the first summer to introduce a new dye workshop:  Shibori and Indigo Dyeing.   It was two days.  The first day we met at the Bradley Centre in Coombs where each participant stitched, folded, clamped and scrunched their cotton and linen fabrics.  The second day was at Elaine’s studio in Errington where we made our indigo vats and proceeded to dye our fabrics.  Here are the results of the two days:

Four silk scarves

Melody's tied piece

Melody's piece after indigo dyeing

clothesline display of finished products

an ambitious duvet cover

oxidizing and drying

beautiful result of wrapping and scrunching on a plastic pipe

examination of textile just unfolded

more samples of stitching and folding

This was a very exhilarating workshop, if you are interested in taking part next year, please let me know.

Due to high student requests we were able to provide two opportunities for natural dyeing this past summer.  The first group was in July and then we had another group in August.  We dye with the yellow dyes on the first day in the morning:  fustic, osage orange, cutch, tansy or marigold, depending on what is ready to harvest.  The afternoon of the first day is dyeing with the reds:  cochineal, madder, logwood.

Lustrous loop mohair

It is fun to see how the dyes take up and penetrate on the different fibres.  Each participant supplies their own yarns to be dyed.  Mostly we get wool yarns, but the breed of sheep and spinning preparation can make a huge difference between the yarns.

A group photo at the end of the day