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    The Wild Dyer: A Maker's Guide to Natural Dyes with Beautiful Projects to create and stitch
    The Wild Dyer: A Maker's Guide to Natural Dyes with Beautiful Projects to create and stitch
    The Wild Dyer: A Maker's Guide to Natural Dyes with Beautiful Projects to create and stitch
    Ebook273 pages1 hour

    The Wild Dyer: A Maker's Guide to Natural Dyes with Beautiful Projects to create and stitch

    By Abigail Booth

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    About this ebook

    Fabrics colored with natural dyes have a beauty and subtlety all of their own. Onion and avocado skins, chamomile and birch bark, and nettles and acorns can produce lovely, ethereal colors and effects. The Wild Dyer demystifies this ecoconscious art, focusing on foraging and growing dying materials; repurposing kitchen trimmings; making and using long-lasting dyes; and creating stitched projects. Workspace setup, equipment, and fabric choices and care are all discussed. Beautiful photographs and easy-to-follow instructions illustrate how to make fifteen exquisite household items, from a drawstring bag to a gardener's smock and a reversible patchwork blanket. The Wild Dyer is a complete guide for both beginners and experienced artists seeking to expand their knowledge of this increasingly popular craft.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPrinceton Architectural Press
    Release dateNov 5, 2019
    ISBN9781616898731
    The Wild Dyer: A Maker's Guide to Natural Dyes with Beautiful Projects to create and stitch
    Author

    Abigail Booth

    Abigail Booth is the London-based cofounder of the studio collective Forest + Found. Working across textiles, drawing, and painting, she exhibits her art throughout the world.

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      Book preview

      The Wild Dyer - Abigail Booth

      Introduction

      I set out to write this book with a wish to impart my knowledge and approach to natural dyes and textile production. I wanted to write something that would allow you to learn through your own sense of discovery in the way that I first did and still do. By teaching you the foundations of natural dyeing and guiding you through simple stitch techniques, this book will allow you to dip in and out of projects while learning about how to forage for and grow your own dye plants.

      Having not had any formal training in textiles, I began working with fabric almost by accident. Although, looking back on it now, it makes total sense, since I grew up with my mother and grandmother sewing throughout my childhood. As a result, my approach to textiles has always been naive and experimental, relying on my intuition and love of reading and research to teach myself the art of natural dyeing, patchwork, and stitch. Originally having been a painter and then an installation artist working with found objects, I have always been fascinated by our relationship to color and material and their influence on culture in both a contemporary and historical context. When visiting museums I am always attracted to the faded and worn textiles you see on display. They seem steeped in history yet also timeless. My wish to create textiles that embody that same sense of place and time led to my discovery of natural dyes. I found looking for the perfect color of fabric in shops was impossible. The subtlety I was afforded when mixing paint had been taken away, and I felt I no longer had control over the most crucial aspect of my creative practice. I wanted to find a way of taking back this control of color in my work, and it was the chance discovery of natural dyes that led me to the answer.

      I have always been fascinated by our relationship to color and material.

      Natural dyes are one of the most fragile and fleeting mediums to work with, but also one of the most rewarding and full of surprises. They immediately give you a wonderful relationship with the outdoors, which I hope will be one of the strongest influences this book has on you as a reader. My approach to working with natural dyes is experimental and, from an outside perspective, not always methodical. Over time I have come to realize that every dyer is different; there is no right or wrong way of doing things. After having spent several years learning and discovering the art of natural dyes, I find that my practice has become far more about exploration and the freedom for the unexpected than it is about trying to achieve a rainbow spectrum of color. I want to encourage people to play and to have the confidence to work in a way that suits all individuals in their own way. Color is a perception and, as such, is sensitive to each of us.

      Working with plant dyes and natural fibers allows you to appreciate the true value of textiles. Being able to take a raw material and transform it into something beautiful and useful is a truly rewarding experience—one I believe more people should have the confidence to try. The more I have worked with natural dyes, the more I have seen a change in my attitude to textile production. They teach you the value of color and how to work sparingly and to be mindful of our consumption of water and energy. This has strengthened my convictions in wanting to make textiles that will last and develop their own character over time. One of the great benefits of working with natural dyes is how economical they are. Dyeing with plants affords you the privilege of experimentation and the luxury of working with natural and sustainable materials without a huge price tag. They are humble and often overlooked yet can be elevated through how you choose to work with them.

      Color is a perception and, as such, is sensitive to each of us.

      Patchwork and stitch are also mediums that are historically associated with thrift; however, they can be incredibly effective and remarkably contemporary in how you utilize them. My own textile practice is predominantly focused on the making of large-scale wall hangings and quilts. I treat these pieces in the same way I used to treat paintings. It is about capturing a moment in time through spontaneous composition and the mark of the maker’s hand. Quilts can be time-consuming and can take weeks, months, and sometimes even years to complete, so I wanted to write a book that would focus on the production of smaller textile pieces that can be used every day and become part of your daily ritual. Culturally, textiles are a very intimate part of daily life. We wear them like a second skin, inhabiting them and sleeping with them. Part of the joy of making is being able to use what we create and to watch it age and change as it becomes well loved and worn.

      My partner and I run a studio practice called Forest + Found and, as the name suggests, we look to the natural world as our predominant source of materials. My partner, who is a woodworker, relies on the forest to source his wood while I work alongside him to forage for dye plants. We have a garden where we grow our own vegetables and dye plants, which also gives us the perfect getaway from busy city life. Whether you live in the city or countryside, natural dyeing is achievable. You can forage for dye plants in local parks or rural areas, and many dyes come from the kitchen, such as onion skins and used coffee grounds. I fell in love with textiles and natural dyes through my understanding of their benefits to our well-being and their connection to the natural world. A simple hand stitch or the picking of wild berries can slow us down and make us live within the moment. By writing this, I wish to introduce you to the simple pleasures of your local plants and the joy in the simplicity of a needle and thread. This book has been written so you can start your own journey of discovery, through the understanding of natural fibers and the transformative power of being in the wild.

      A simple hand stitch can slow us down and make us live within the moment.

      NATURAL COLOR

      I’d like to take a moment to talk a little about what natural dyes are and where they come from. Natural dyes are colors and pigments that are derived from plants and minerals. Essentially, they are a part of the natural world and the landscape around us. Historically, all textiles were dyed using natural dyes. This traditional process was used up until the late 1800s, when the first synthetic dye was introduced. Natural dyes, unlike synthetics, do something very special when you look at them. The physical molecule of natural dye pigment reflects light in a very different way from that of an equivalent synthetic dye. The result is that they look luminescent; they have a very changeable quality and appear chameleonlike in different light environments. I have often been asked if the fabric I produce is suede, as it has such a reflective quality. It is one of the reasons I fell in love with using natural dyes, and I hope it will be something that transforms your relationship to textiles and color, too.

      Essentially these dyes are a part of the natural world and the landscape around us.

      Certain dye plants have been used for centuries, such as woad, weld, and madder, because of their ability to produce reliable and bright primary colors. My own interest in dye plants lies more in the locality of natural dyes and the possibility of walking out of your front door and finding a color palette that directly relates to your environment. I am familiar with natural dyers who analyze dyes on a molecular level; dyers with long and meticulously researched and practiced recipes; historical dyers who work with obscure ingredients and methods; and contemporary dyers who can recreate a

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