Beautiful Silks Workshops presents: Natural Dye Symposium 2012

''Nature's Colours in the City"

India Flint:

WORKSHOP Description: Code IFNDS12 Dyeing Mixed Textiles for Further Projects 29th June 2012 doors open at 9.30am for a 10am start, conclude at 4.30pm.

In this workshop, you will receive a bundle of textiles - this bundle contains 30cm square of pure silk velvet, corduroy, boucle, tussah, a bag containing 100gr of old silk fragments, 3 hanks of silk yarn, including 10mtr of silk cord, 10 mtr of silk ribbon, 8mtr of silk embroidery thread, and 100mtr of silk cotton thread mix. You will bring your collection of gatherings, to produce a menagerie of plant dyed bundles. This is a fun and instructive introduction into the world of India Flint, a dyer using no additive poisonous mordants, go home from this workshop with materials to start another fun stitching project at home.

Bring: 12 tags of old cotton with your name initials embroidered on by machine in polyester stitching cloth. This is essential to avoid tears at the end of the day when bundles are retrieved from the different pots. A simple torn old peice of undyed sheeting is best - get out the sewing machine, and sew your initials onto the cloth.

A nice big roll of string, hemp or cotton string is nice.

A few peices of dowell, or a nice round stalk eg flax flower stalk. Dowell is fine,- at least 6 of these.

If you have a favorite pot, iron, aluminium, copper, bring it please. We have 18 cooking surfaces available and you can use your own pot. Be prepared to share.

Any plant material you want to experiment with - remember textiles can be dyed again - it's a fun day of discovery.

A notebook, sissors, sewing needles, camera, wear clothes that don't matter and no open shoes please.

Cost - one day workshop, with all textiles supplied $175.00

Enrol now- pay deposit on line. Please be sure to include your phone number in the comments section.

STATE DATE OF WORKSHOP WHEN PAYING DEPOSIT PLEASE

1 person non-refundable deposit $50.00 AUD 2 persons non-refundable deposit $100.00 AUD 1 person and registration after 1 September $175.00 AUD 2 persons and registration $350.00 AUD

Insert 30 June OR 1 July

You may be aquainted with the work of the accomplished India Flint, if not please see her website here.

Complex Cloth is the laying stitching and eco dyeing of different types of cloth, then treating these in the same way to get different colours: You can stitch new and old or both together, to create a wealth of useable beauty from things once useless.

The ecoprint is a water-based printing process used to apply colour to cloth from plants. It uses relatively small quantities of plant material in a recycled dye-bath and requires no adjunct mordants when protein fibres such as silk or wool are used. Dyes from plants are a renewable resource, whereas synthetic dyes derived from petrochemicals or fossil sources such as coal, are not. Plant dye-making links art and science, historically embracing botany and medicine as well as an appreciation of chemistry.

Photo: India Flint

Literally every plant in the world will have some sort of colour to offer the dyer. There are at least as many subtly different hues as there are plant species in the world, and an infinite range of colours and shades to be had

Email us to express your interest