We had such a great response to John’s two workshops that he’s graciously agreed to add a third workshop experience.  We are thrilled to host our dear friend and natural dye collaborator in a rare in-person appearance and invite you to experience his humor and artistic expertise with Japanese textile and dye techniques.

Experience The Colors of Tangier at The Mothership.
In this workshop you will be immersed in Moroccan culture, textiles, dye plants and in free creative play. You will be guided in a methodical approach to color building, using the natural dyes growing at the Mothership in Tangier, by Cara Piazza, a New York City based natural dyer and artist. In addition, you will have guided studio time for interdependent creative exploration of natural dye techniques. You will also have ample time to experience and explore the city, including visits to markets, artisans’ coops, and meeting local artists. She will be accompanied by Megumi Arai who will be assisting as part of the Botanical Colors team. Through this experience you will leave with a knowledge of how to extract color from raw natural dye stuffs, mordant (pre-treat your fiber to be able to take the dye), mix natural dye colors to make new exciting hues and leave having created your own swatch library testing the colors of Tangier. Cara will also cover how to shift your natural dyes you forage from the land with pH modifiers along with demonstrating eco – printing & how to make cosmic prints. 

Description Sign up for The Nerd’s Guide To Mordants on the Sanborn Mills Farm website. $700, Aug 14, 2024 – August 18, 2024 (9am – 5pm) This is the nerd’s guide to mordants – what they are, why they are important and how they are used in natural dyeing. Everyone wants to create long-lasting and beautiful plant color and the best way to do that is to mordant properly.  The class will experiment with the most popular plant-based tannins and alum accumulators, mineral salt mordants and other binders to see the effects on animal and plant fibers. Each mordant variable will be dyed so that we ... Read more

Conjuring Color Blends With Kathy Hattori in New Hampshire! Description Sign up for this class is on the Sanborn Mills Farm website. $700, Aug 21, 2024 – August 25, 2024 (9am – 5pm) Conjuring Color Blends With Kathy Hattori at Sanborn Mills Farm in New Hampshire is a course on how to blend colors using natural dyes in unexpected combinations to create beautiful results. The palette will be developed on natural fabrics including hemp, cotton, silk and wool, with an emphasis on cellulose fibers. We will work with natural dyes in raw, concentrated extract and liquid form, different mineral salts and indigo. Pre- and ... Read more

We are very excited to have Arounna Khounnoraj from bookhou join us in Seattle for this workshop.
Arounna Khounnoraj – @bookhou teaches Clay Resist with Indigo Overdye
Join Arounna in this one-day workshop working with thickened clay and indigo overdye to make patterned designs. This is a wonderful way to incorporate free-form brush designs into your work or use stamps or blocks for an allover design. Clay provides a beautiful resist to indigo and the look is distinctive, yet soft and lends itself to stitching or other embellishment.