I had great fun chatting to the other five women there, and thankfully everyone had great English so they were able to run the workshop without me getting totally lost.
We went through the history of blue dyes, the plants that produce indigo and other less useful dyes, and how to extract the pigment from the plant and make it water soluble. We then went through the process of activating a dyeing tank - surprisingly smelly! - and folding our pieces of cotton and silk to create dyed and undyed areas.
First try, fabric folded up accordion-fashion into a thin strip and then folded again, held with a clothes peg.
Folded into a strip as before, then into triangles, held with a long thin clip.
Long thin strip folded in half and rolled, held with two elastic bands.
And finally the big one! A large piece of silk, folded into a strip and then into squares like the first piece, with two pieces of wood clamped with two clips covering the centre.
The venue was pretty interesting too, with a metalworking workshop amongst other things.
We also had the year's first home-grown salad - Swiss chard, mustard leaves, spicy mixed leaves and radishes all grown on the balcony!
And the pumpkins look like they're trying to take over the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment