Natural dye workshop on the roof terrace
As part of the big welcome for the new students at UAL, together with the green roof UAL student society , we held a natural dye workshop. A perfect day to be outdoors on the roof garden, making colours from plants.
We dyed some bamboo silk ribbons with bio-waste including red and white onion skins, avocado skins and red cabbage; with foraged plants such as buddleia flowers and eucalyptus, bay leaves and woad from the dye garden.
Yellow from buddleia Orange from yellow onion skins
After we dye the rubans we can use modifiers to change the original colour: acidic like lemon or vinegar to brighten the colour, alkaline like soda ash or bicarbonate of soda , and iron to sadden the colours.
Bellow the ribbon dyed in the red cabbage is dipped afterwards in an iron bath. The purple colour is transformed into a blue grey colour.
Suzie giving a tour of the garden.
Arina offering tea made from rosemary from the garden.
Freshly cut woad leaves are best used for dyeing. Harvested on a specially warm day, they should release strong pigment. Here we use them with a small tea spoon of salt, mixing and massaging them together with the wet fabric, silk and wool. The dye works very quickly, turning the fabric green nearly immediately.
We rinse the dyed fabric in cold water before hanging it to dry.
We start knotting the dyed ribbons, adding them organically to each others.
Great to see all the colorful ribbons interacting with each other to create a textile installation.
What a perfect day spent on the roof!