Recently I’ve been experimenting with using how to use natural dyes to colour and dye fabrics. Using from plants grown in my own garden, as well as those I’ve foraged locally. It’s been a wonderfully unpredictable process and one that has fitted naturally with the way I like to work as an artist — being curious, trying things out and seeing where the materials take me.
As well as herbs, vegetables, garden ornamentals I have been black-berrying along our country lanes, and it's been really interesting discovering the different colours and tones they produce. The results can be wonderfully unpredictable, which is part of the fun! Sometimes I have a particular colour in mind and end up with something completely different. Adding rusty nails or potash help 'sets' the dye and creates different depths and tones to the colours. There’s also been some more alarming moments, like when I almost set my kitchen alight while experimenting to see if gooseberries would work as a dye! Thankfully, the kitchen survived and the dyeing continues.
Of course, the process doesn’t finish when the fabric comes out of the dye pan. The colours, marks and shapes created by the plants will become part of my design and artwork. I use the fabrics as the starting point for my hand-stitched work, drawing designs onto the fabric before stitching. It is the relationship between the fabric, the natural colours and the subject matter that brings me the joy of the work, and inspires me.
Natural dyeing also connects with something that has always been important to me: sustainability. I’m a bit of a magpie when it comes to materials, collecting things and wondering what I might transform them into. Wherever possible, I source and use pre-loved, found or repurposed fabrics, giving them another life rather than buying new. Using plants to colour these fabrics feels like another lovely part of that process. For me its the perfect way to combine my love of sewing, gardening and nature.
Naturally dyed fabrics were an integral part of some of the works in my summer exhibition and I’m really looking forward to using them in my upcoming autumn workshops too. I’ll be sharing some of the ideas and processes behind my work and encouraging people to explore their own creativity through making.
There’s definitely plenty more I want to explore. I’d love to grow some dye-specific plants, such as woad, and continue experimenting with plants I can responsibly forage from the local area. I’m still very much at the beginning of this exploration, and that’s what makes it so exciting — and I’m looking forward to seeing where it takes me next.