Fabric with concentric shapes in blue and white

For National Tie-Dye Day, Resist With An Indigo Vat

There’s a holiday for everything so all hail National Tie-Dye Day! According to Vox, did you know that historians’ knowledge of early techniques similar to tie-dye is limited by the fact that textiles decay faster than most other artistic mediums? This means surviving samples aren’t easy to come by. “‘Some of the earliest examples come from Peru, but tie-dye seems to have originated independently all over the world,’ says Lee Talbot, curator of George Washington University’s Textile Museum.” We’ve created this National Tie-Dye Day how-to just for you to celebrate this sacred day to continue the tradition. Not sure which … Read more

Video From LIVE FEEDBACK FRIDAY: Rust Belt Fibershed + Drift Lab Dye Studio

This week’s FEEDBACK FRIDAY was with Sarah Pottle and Jess Boeke, twin sisters from Cleveland, OH, who are natural dyers, educators, activists, and are the co-founders of the Rust Belt Fibershed and Drift Lab Dye Studio. Watch the video recording here: Links we promised to put here: Rust Belt Fibershed Drift Lab Textile Co. Grounded Teaching Chico Flax webinar Fibrevolution (more flax farming in the US!) Fibershed video: Black Fiber Systems: with Teju Adisa-Farrar, Sha’Mira Covington, and Amber Tamm Call of the Reed Warbler-A New Agriculture, A New Earth, by Charles Massy Fibershed: Growing a Movement of Farmers, Fashion Activists, … Read more

RSVP: LIVE FEEDBACK FRIDAY With Botanical Colors’ Founder Kathy Hattori

Join us September 11th, 9am Pacific, 12 pm Eastern for a live Zoom FEEDBACK FRIDAY with Botanical Colors’ Founder Kathy Hattori. We are going old school this week with Kathy answering all the natural dye/mordant/process questions we can get to. Send your questions ahead of time to me (Amy) at [email protected]. RSVP for FEEDBACK FRIDAY with Kathy Hattori HERE. What Botanical Colors Does: The way that conventional color is applied to clothes is broken. “Wet processing” as industrial dyeing is called, is one of the top polluters in the world, consuming enormous amounts of energy, water and petrochemical based colorants. … Read more

Video From LIVE FEEDBACK FRIDAY: Madder Experiments w/Jamie Bourgeois & Madeleine McGarrity

This week, we’ve got video from our live FEEDBACK FRIDAY featuring Jamie Bourgeois & Madeleine McGarrity talking madder and water quality. This particular FEEDBACK FRIDAY puts a spotlight on our community and the work they are doing regarding pollution and water quality. Watch the video recording here: The discussion focused on the duos investigations into water quality using natural dye processes. Both have used madder from Rubia tinctorum to better understand the composition of a selection of water sources. Jamie concentrates on the possible presence of toxic contaminants taken from Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, a 150-mile stretch of the Mississippi River … Read more

Video From LIVE FEEDBACK FRIDAY: Rebecca Burgess of Fibershed

This week, we’ve got video from our live FEEDBACK FRIDAY featuring Rebecca Burgess of Fibershed.  Watch the recording here. Rebecca Burgess is the executive director of Fibershed, chair of the board for Carbon Cycle Institute, and the author of Harvesting Color as well as Fibershed-Growing a Movement of Farmers, Fashion Activists, and Makers for a New Textile Economy. Some things that Rebecca mentioned today: -The main Fibershed website. –3 maps showing Fibershed’s Regional Fiber Manufacturing Initiative. The first half of 2020 focused on mapping the ecosystem for the supply and processing of wool, linen, hemp, cotton, natural dyes, and hides. … Read more

EXHIBIT: The Drawing Center Features ‘Thread Lines’

IF IN NYC….”This group exhibition features sixteen artists who engage in sewing, knitting, and weaving to create a wide-range of works that activate the expressive and conceptual potential of line and illuminate affinities between the mediums of textile and drawing. Multi-generational in scope, Thread Lines brings together those pioneers who—challenging entrenched modernist hierarchies—first unraveled the distinction between textile and art with a new wave of contemporary practitioners who have inherited and expanded upon their groundbreaking gestures. More info here on the Drawing Center site. Image: Ellen Lesperance (b. 1971, Minneapolis, MN) at the Drawing Center