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It would be hard not to notice that the dandelion season is here!  Although they flower throughout the summer, spring is when they burst forth in profusion.  The dandelion  (Taraxacum officinale) is a perennial plant that grows widely across temperate zones.  As anyone trying to keep them out of their garden will know, they are hard to thwart, each of their fluffy white ‘dandelion clock’ heads containing over a hundred seeds that drift away on a breeze.  The name ‘dandelion’ comes from the French ‘dent de lion’, lion’s teeth, and the plant has a fossil record going back to the...

Learn how to naturally dye beautiful easter eggs using common kitchen staples. Use beetroot, turmeric, coffee, onion skins and cabbage to create natural easter decorations. 

A lovely project to try with children, combining a walk to gather leaves and flowers for resist dyeing with some creativity.

Please always forage responsibly taking only what you need, leaving the rest be.

Yesterday I held my first natural dyeing workshop in its new home -mine! After several years of packing up the back of the car with all the boxes required to get the equipment to every new workshop venue – that’s pots and pans, sieves and tongs, yarns and fabrics, dyes and mordants, buckets and cloths, hobs and handouts and a lot else besides – I wondered if perhaps it would be better to set up a workshop space at home. Running natural dyeing workshops at Elka Textiles’ studio, just outside Winchester, was a joy; light and airy, plenty of space,...

 If you didn’t catch PART 1 of this blog you may like to have a quick look at it before going on to PART 2 – but it’s not essential. PART 1  gave an outline of the importance of the madder plant (Rubia tinctorum) to ancient dyeing communities and to international trade in times past, until the development of the first man-made dyes in the mid 19th century.  But with current concerns about the environmental damage caused by the synthetic dyeing industry, there is a renewed interest in this remarkable natural plant dye, both commercially and to the home dyer....

Mothering Sunday conveniently fell on the weekend of Fibre Quest this year and, as my daughter and I were visiting my folks, we turned it into a family outing.   Fernhill Farm,  is an eco-farm in Somerset that has been breeding sheep for over thirty years and advocates the principles of Regenerative Farming (RF), a system of working the land that offers an alternative to intensive farming practices. It aims to work in harmony with nature to restore soil health and biodiversity, contributing to the enrichment of the local ecology and the mitigation of climate change. Fibre Quest is a...