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This week I am bringing you something a little different, I know many of you love to work wonders with cloth, whether it be embroidery, printing, dyeing or any number of fab and creative techniques so I thought it would be interesting to look at someone who is heavily embroiled in the world of cloth. This someone is Babs Behan from Botanical Inks.
Botanical Inks is a platform for re-skilling creative communities with local plant knowledge and contemporary traditional “low-impact” surface application techniques. They teach people to forage for local colour-producing plants and use a variety of dye and print processes, without the use of any toxic synthetic chemicals or heavy metals. Using locally grown and manufactured wool, organic peace silk and recycled paper, or vintage garments and textiles.
We teach people to forage for local colour-producing plants and use a variety of dye and print processes.
Botanical Inks run regular exciting and enticing workshops in Indigo, shibori, eco plant, flower printing and more:
INDIGO + SHIBORI
‘An exciting opportunity to discover the alchemical process of achieving blue textile colours from plants.’
Experiment with traditional Shibori fold and blind ‘resist’ pattern making techniques to produce wonderfully personal blue and white repeat patterns on cloth. This technique is executed in vats of natural indigo dye that you can learn to prepare for yourself at home to produce endless patterns.
ECO-PRINTING WITH FLOWERS + PLANTS
Eco printing is a contemporary surface application technique, which does not require colour extraction or even the dye pot. Instead it allows you to make direct impressions from flower, berries, leaves and waste food to cloth. Using a simple fold, blind and steam process beautiful repeat patterns are created.
Find more information on Botanical Inks workshops here.
Babs has her fingers in many textile pies and is also a partner in Bristol Cloth, A 100% wool fabric of classic heritage-inspired design, prioritising locally sourced materials and manufacturing processes from the South West of the UK.
‘With Bristol as Europe’s Green Capital in 2015, what better time than now to explore how a more resilient, local textile might look? The Bristol Cloth project challenges the UK Textile Industry to consider what a more resilient textile economy may look like’
We are proud to be providing naturally dyed yarn, using waste onion skins, foraged from organic food suppliers in Bristol.
To find out more about Bab’s latest antics in the world of cloth read her latest journal post where she reflects on her wild summer covering recent workshops with Selvedge magazine, Babington House and the dye master, Aboubakar Fofana where Babs and her students explored the traditional technique for using a fermentation vat to extract blue dye from indigo leaves.
Are you creative with cloth? Let us know your story for a chance to be a part of the Dannells lampshade making blog!
Follow Botanical Inks on instagram here:
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