Yesterday we hosted a bundle dyeing workshop for the first time!
Our friend Slowcreations has been working with the technique for several years and we were delighted when she asked if we wanted to do something together, so we arranged an afternoon session of natural dyeing outside of the store.
The bundle technique is a way of creating imprints of natural dyestuffs on fabric. You take pieces of vegetables, spices and plants that contain colour and wrap them in fabric to bake a bundle, with is then boiled in water. After an hour the bundle can be unwrapped, and the pieces will have left an imprint. To spice up things even more, you can combine tannine-rich vegetable matter, like pomegranate rinds or acorns, with pieces of rusty iron in the bundle to create grayish-black patterns that emerge when the rust oxidizes with the tannines.
We offered some traditional natural dyes aswell; got a pot of indigo going to create deep blues, a pot with ground madder roots to create brilliant reds and cochenille lice that left bright magenta spots on the fabrics where they were used in the bundles.
To host a workshop us undeniably connected to a lot of work, but its always worth it when we get to meet new friends who are interested in crafts and want to learn new things!
