To dye for

It’s been really a busy time preparing for my trip to Australia this March to give workshops. In a meantime I managed to give 2 more workshops in Moscow and had real pleasure seeing the students create wonderful things from the wild fibers.

I also opened a real herbal lab in our apartment with lot’s of natural dyeing taking place. And found a beautiful quotation about natural dyes to continue the theme of the natural over the synthetic colours:

“One of the key reasons why natural colors look better than chemical colors because they are not 'pure' color: a natural red, for example, will include blue and yellow, whereas a chemical red will only contain red pigment. The impurities of natural dyes, which may comprise from five to 25 percent of the dye, consist of other hues that are similar to the main one, and it is these mixtures that make natural dyes so beautiful and create their harmony with neighboring natural colors. Where one person will see some purple in a hank of gray yarn, another may see some blue in it. To be able to see the difference is partly genetic, like the ability to curl one's tongue lengthwise, and partly a matter of experience. On the other hand, evenness of a synthetically dyed carpet is flat and uninteresting. Natural dye, precisely because of its unevenness, makes color vibrate or sparkle. And for some people this "imperfection," a sign of the artist's hand working natural substances from the garden or fields, has spiritual overtones.” (AzerbaijanRugs)

 

Some of my natural colours drying and waiting to be felted in. A real burst of colours, longing for Spring?..