Workshop India Flint 'Velvet Underground'

WORKSHOP Description: Code IF06

Pure silk Velvet wrap stitched, with prefelt!

Day one, stitching prefelt to velvet India Flint will supervise this process which needs to be done in a particular way for the process to work well.

Day two finishing the edges of the scarf then just before lunch we fold and clamp for shibori dye with a handful of found leaves and onion skins - is a combo ecoprint/shibori method and the felting comes last of all, when the whole bundle has been nicely heated by the dyebath and we can fling it about without need for soap

Workshop fee $300.00 materials fee is NOT included 2mtr x 50cm prefelt + 2mtr x 55cm pure silk velvet piece, + 25gr of silk cotton stitiching yarn, + 25gr hank of pure silk 2/20 yarn. $50 (Total $350.00) Limit 12 students.

Above, velvets from a piece donated by India to Beautiful Silks 2009

You may be aquainted with the work of the accomplished India Flint, if not please see her website here.

Complex Cloth is the laying stitching and eco dyeing of different types of cloth, then treating these in the same way to get different colours: You can stitch new and old or both together, to create a wealth of useable beauty from things once useless.

The ecoprint is a water-based printing process used to apply colour to cloth from plants. It uses relatively small quantities of plant material in a recycled dye-bath and requires no adjunct mordants when protein fibres such as silk or wool are used. Dyes from plants are a renewable resource, whereas synthetic dyes derived from petrochemicals or fossil sources such as coal, are not. Plant dye-making links art and science, historically embracing botany and medicine as well as an appreciation of chemistry.

Photo: India Flint

Literally every plant in the world will have some sort of colour to offer the dyer. There are at least as many subtly different hues as there are plant species in the world, and an infinite range of colours and shades to be had

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