My beautiful friend Sally, owner of Tartan asked me to contribute to her mind mend auction this November. The project asked Australian creatives to reimagine deadstock garments, samples and fabrics and respond in a circular waste reducing way to create reimagined pieces. This silk top was hand painted and dyed with madder root and can be purchased through the online action with 100% of proceeds going to mental health charities.
Natural dye workshop
Natural dye workshop - The School
Our new two-day intensive natural dye workshop was a great success. After months of preparation, the natural dye workshop was held at The School in Sydney. It is always such a joy to teach in such a beautiful space. More pictures of the workshop to follow.
Flore from The Flo Show, a talented photographer and film maker captured the two days beautifully.
Pic: Flo - The Flo Show
New workshops added
in natural dye
screen print, block print, natural dye and indigo workshops listed on the website
Read MoreNatural dye workshops
An evening of natural dye with UTS students. Turmeric and it’s many beautiful shades.
Untapped resource - Coffee Grounds. Turning waste into a resource for natural dyeing.
Untapped resource: coffee grounds. Turning waste into a resource for natural dyeing.
I’m thinking about the food waste in my local area in particular the university I tutor at and it’s local coffee shops. Coffee ground waste is immense, we only have to think about how much coffee the population consumes and then imagine this on a global scale.
The cafe upstairs from my workplace uses kilos and kilos of coffee each day. How can we divert this and use this resource? In one day we reclaimed a FIFTEEN litre bucket full of used grounds that would just go into landfill and won’t be composted. Instead we are trying to divert a small amount of this waste in a local trial to see haw we can use it as a natural fabric dye.
How could we upscale this on a larger scale? Utilise the dye qualities and then responsibly compost afterwards?