Only a few days till my weaving day course on Saturday 9th September in Cirencester at Vanessa Arbuthnott’s creative space ‘The Bothy’. There are a few spaces left and all are welcome, even those who have never been near a loom but have long harboured a desire to have a go at weaving.  Further information and booking via http://www.the-bothy.org

Running a natural dyeing workshop in the summer is the best time of year as the students have a vast array of plants in full bloom to extract colour from. This day of alchemy was held at The Bothy @ Vanessa Arbuthnott’s fabric showroom in Cirencester a couple of weekends ago.

Will wild Golden Rod give the same colour as the cultivated garden variety?

What colour (if any) will white flowers give when boiled up?

Will deep pink Dahlia flowers give the same colour dye? The answer:-  it produced the zingy orange (in the centre of the image) on the wool we used to create a colour reference.

The students were guided in the preparation of dyestuffs, fresh, dried and concentrated extracts; with the mordanting of the wool to ensure the dyes didn’t wash out; the varied dyeing methods and processes, then played with colour by dyeing a second colour over the first using all the coloured dye-baths we had produced during the day. Each student chose their favourite colours to dye 3 skeins of British Wool to take home.

As a ‘run through’ for the first Natural Dyeing workshop I will be teaching at The Bothy in Cirencester on Saturday August 12th, I extended an invitation to students who had been on one of my weaving courses, to come and spend a day making and using dyes extracted from natural sources.

Dye was extracted from dried dyestuffs including madder (reds/oranges/pinks) and Logwood (purples/greys/browns) and from a diverse range of seasonal fresh plants including Weld (yellows), asparagus leaves (pale green) and white Achillea (blue/grey), plus as many more as we had jars to try! Wool samples pre-prepared with mordant were dyed and some over-dyed in a second colour producing a subtle two-toned yarn.

My plan for the students to dye a 30g skein of wool in their favourite dye(s) fell by the wayside as they wanted to keep extracting colour from new plants, so they took this mordanted wool home.

Within a couple of days I started receiving emails with photos of the plants they had tried and the fabulous (and sometimes unexpected) colours they had dyed their wool.

I’ve set up the portable loom for my demonstration this weekend at Stow Cotswold Festival on Saturday 15th July. I will be in St Edward’s Hall and I would love you to drop by! There will be a couple of little looms for anyone to try weaving.

In the next couple of months I will be taking a loom or two to the following shows.

I will be demonstrating weaving and where it is feasible I will have equipment setup ready for visitors to have a go at weaving.

The Cotswold Show held on Saturday and Sunday, July 1st and 2nd in Cirencester. I will be in the Rural Crafts area as a guest of the Northleach Spinners and Weavers.

The Stow Cotswold Festival held on Saturday 15th July in Stow on the Wold, with Cotswold AONB Rural Skills.

Also as a new tutor for New Brewery Arts, Cirencester, I will be assisting on their stand at the Contemporary Craft Festival this weekend in Bovey Tracey, Devon. The Festival runs from Friday 9th June to Sunday 11th June, I will be there on Saturday.

At the Cotswolds Inspired ‘Art’ Exhibition Launch evening. Another 2 cushions were displayed in a glass cabinet like an artwork!

I made two submissions for the Cotswolds Inspired Art Exhibition and both have been selected for the show to be held at The Corinium Museum in Cirencester this month.

The Exhibition is to celebrate the culmination of the 50th Anniversary year of the Cotswolds being designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The open call to artists and craftsmen, was to create pieces in any media, inspired by any aspect of the Cotswolds AONB.

My designs made with the wool from British rare breed sheep, were developed and hand-woven on a wooden treadle loom in my studio. The wool was the catalyst for these designs; a friend gave me a large quantity of wool yarn she had laboriously hand-spun and dyed in an assortment of green tones with an interestingly uneven texture.

I decided on using the cloth for cushions; perhaps not for a posh sofa but more for a rustic kitchen and taken out into the garden on a beautiful day.

My last post was a video and this is the actual interview.

I was interviewed by BBC Radio Gloucestershire’s Joanna Durrant at the Cotswolds AONB Hedgelaying Championships and Rural Skills showcase held at Daylesford Farm, Kingham near Stow-on-the-Wold on 12th November 2016.

Video Interview

I will be weaving, in a field this time! at the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty Hedgelaying Championship and Rural Skills Showcase next weekend, the 12th November, 9.30 to 2.30 at Daylesford Farm, Kingham, GL56 0YG. Other Rural Skills are being demonstrated, such as blacksmithing and green woodworking plus there will be food and drink stalls.