What a fantastic new dye journal by PlantsPeople, based out of the Bay area and totally readable online. Contact Deepa Preeti Natarajan, founder of PlantsPeople if you’d like a hard copy otherwise read here. Including the brilliant minds of Rebecca Burgess of Fibershed, Sasha Duerr of the Permacouture Institute, Kristine Vejar of A Verb for Keeping Warm and BIOhue.
The North American Mycological Association writes: “In the early 1970’s Miriam Rice, a fiber arts teacher from Mendocino, California, discovered that many species of wild mushrooms were a source of pigments or colors. These pigments could be extracted fairly easily in hot water and used to dye natural fibers, especially wool. With the help of her friend and illustrator Dorothy Beebee, they published their results first in 1974 in the book Let’s Try Mushrooms for Color, with a second book published in 1980, Mushrooms for Color. A more recent book published in 2007 and reprinted in 2012, Mushrooms for Dyes, … Read more
Last night we had a lot of fun at the Textile Arts Center in Manhattan. As you might have seen here and there on social media, we are the natural dye sponsor for the upcoming Sewing Seeds fundraiser. If you are in New York City and can attend, this is going to be a great event not just in terms of the most amazing naturally dyed textile installation “Tumbleweed Colony” from Lost in Fiber’s Abigail Doan, but a wonderful event to meet friends old and new. To purchase tickets for the event at the Textile Arts Center, go here and … Read more
Thanks so much to the Washington state based Contemporary Art Quilt Association for this story on Kathy’s recent “Sustainable Color for Artists” talk. Check out the article here.
Join us in Albuquerque at Village Wools for a Natural Dye Workshop April 24-25, 2015. Las Arañas Spinners and Weavers Guild was formed in 1971 by a group of spinners and weavers in the Albuquerque, New Mexico area to provide education and learning experiences for its members and increase the awareness of and appreciation for fiber arts throughout New Mexico and beyond. For more info and to RSVP, go here.
Botanical Colors founder Kathy Hattori recently commented on an article titled “Mordant Madness!” on Buxton, Maine based Lana Plantae responding to a discussion about a person posting on a “social media page devoted to fiber arts,” that they were “attacked” by natural dyers at a fiber event because their wool was colored with synthetic vs. using natural dyes. Lana Plantae founder Marcia Macdonald writes: “I do suspect the word “attack” may be a little strong and used for dramatic effect. Immediately there was a long string of commentary and it was very anti- natural dye, anti-mordant and overwhelmingly these … Read more
Textile Tuesday, June 3, 2015, 4-6 pm The ability to design and manufacture an organic and naturally dyed clothing collection in the U.S. is now within reach. Learn how to use sustainable fabrics, natural dyes and textile manufacturing to design and create a sustainable collection. Botanical Colors, will present the options and services available to designers when considering a natural dye project. We will review resources for fabrics, dyes, indigo dyeing and scalable color and production services from “one of a kind” pieces to runs of hundreds of garments. We will have an extensive library of naturally dyed fabrics, garments, … Read more
This week, we took a look to see what the stories were on our Facebook and Twitter feeds that had you clicking through. Here are the top 5 that had some resonance with you! Easy and Fun DIY Indigo Dyed Easter Eggs on Botanical Colors Easter is coming and why go and buy the same toxic egg-coloring kit when we’ve created a fun and easy DIY indigo Easter egg instructional for you to have fun with?! Instructions and pretty images here. Old Ways Prove Hard to Shed, Even as Crisis Hits Kimono Trade on the New York Times “Dorozome,” or … Read more
Here’s a fun way to do some easy DIY indigo-dyed Easter eggs! About Food says that “Easter falls in the spring, the yearly time of renewal, when the earth renews itself after a long, cold winter. The word Easter comes to us from the Norsemen’s Eostur, Eastar, Ostara and Ostar and the pagan goddess Eostre all of which include the season of the growing sun and rebirth. The ancient Egyptians, Persians, Phoenicians, and Hindus all believed the world began with an enormous egg, thus the egg as a symbol of new life has been around for eons.” I have always … Read more
Just when we think we’ve heard it all, Rain Palette from Dahea Sun aims to provide an easy and poetic approach to visualizing air quality through rainwater and natural dyes. The works Dahea has developed are dyed with natural dyes that will change color in reaction to the pH levels of rainwater and aims to provide an at-a-glance indication of atmospheric air quality, with the potential for wearers to record and upload rain pH readings online to create a global database of real-time environmental data. SO cool. More here. Images: Rain Palette from Dahea Sun
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