Samantha Farmer - 3 day natural dyeing and spinning workshop - 28/29/30th July- £330

Science Magic is a dive into hands-on exploration of local fibres and natural dyeing. Wool, plants and fungi from the Scottish Highlands meet your creative mind and heart as we dye and create our own sustainable materials..

We will be covering wool/fibre sourcing, processing and spinning alongside natural dyeing using historical and modern sources. Time in the studio will be in hand with outdoors sessions foraging for materials in the surrounding countryside. Learn how to dye your own skeins of wool, bundle dye, and try your hand at processing and handspinning fibre.

Day 1

Introduction to natural dyeing: materials, processes, mordants/modifiers, things you can dye. After this introduction we will go out and forage for dyestuffs. Bringing gathered materials back to prepare for hot dye pots and solar dye baths.

Day 2

Blending pre-dyed local wool and other natural fibres using the blending board, drum carder and hand carders for different effects. Introduction to hand-spinning the fibre on drop spindles. dyeing skeins in hot dye pots using foraged materials and dye extracts

Day 3

Indigo & woad dyeing (blues!), overdyeing skeins of yarn from the day before to create a wide range of shades using different effects. Choose your own adventure- individual help with hand-spinning, more dyeing, more wool blending, needle felting, whatever strikes your fancy to spend a couple of extra hours doing. 

Take home

Your dyed skeins (enough for a medium to large project), blended wool for spinning or felting, a solar dye jar that can be reused, dyer’s journal.