Textile Workshops at Chiswick House

Prints made by participants at Neera Sehgal's workshop

 

Recently my daughter treated me to a day of workshops at Chiswick House, London.  These were part of Selvedge Magazine's London Textile Month and the artists leading the workshops were Neera Sehgal, woodblock artist & screenprinter, Tomoko Yamanaka, clothes designer & machine knitter, and Rachna Garodia, weaver.  They all have their studios at Chiswick House. 

 

Printing blocks and paints in Neera Sehgal's studio

The day started inauspiciously as our train was late and we missed our bus. Even arriving a little late, we still managed to get there in time to enjoy our first workshop which was with Neera Sehgal doing block printing. I loved Neera's business card...

Neera Sehgal's business card

Neera had lots of materials to choose from and we all had our own palettes to add our choice of paints to. We had different papers to print on and finished the session printing onto a cotton handkerchief.  It was great fun.

My block printing on paper and cotton handkerchief

Next, we then moved on to try our hand at machine knitting with Tomoko Yamanaka and could make a small neckpiece or a little bag.  Tomoko was very patient with us and helped us sort out all our mistakes - or maybe I should say she helped me sort out all my mistakes.

Tomoko Yamanaka's studio with knitting machines, sample neckpieces, Tomoko's clothing samples

I was delighted with my finished neckpiece (I wove in the ends at home and washed and pressed it)...

My finished neckpiece

Our final workshop was with Rachna Garodia doing some paper weaving. Although we were working outside, we got a chance to look round her studio which was full of interesting weavings...

Some of Rachna Garodia's work on display in her studio

Rachna had prepared lots of paper weaving pattern samples.  We could choose a pattern to try and weave...

Rachna Garodia's weaving pattern samples

We had to cut our base paper to form a warp and then chose a photo which we cut up to form the weft.  I chose a picture of peeling paint for my weft. Here are my results...

My weaving pattern and the remains of my photo that formed the warp

After the workshops, we had a bit of time to try out the cafe at Chiswick House (v. nice) and have a short walk round the grounds.  We saw a couple of weddings so you can obviously get married there too but that wasn't on our agenda.  The grounds at Chiswick House are free to look round and are open everyday from 7am till dusk.  The Kitchen Garden is open Thursday to Sunday 10.30am – 3.30pm where they sell fresh seasonal produce.  All in all it was a splendid day!

Dyeing with Rhubarb

Rhubarb Dyed Fabric & Yarn

It's that time of year when rhubarb is coming into its own and we have a sizeable rhubarb plant on the allotment.  The other day when I picked some to make a rhubarb pudding, I remembered reading about rhubarb leaves.  You can use them to make a mordant solution. A mordant is a dye fixative.  It helps bind the dye to a fabric to make it more colourfast and can affect the resulting colour.  For example, mordants may intensify the dye colour and can also be dyes in their own right.

Rhubarb in the Allotment

The recipe I used was from the Selvedge magazine website where they have a number of different craft projects for you to try.  You can find them all here and the Rhubarb Mordant instructions here.

Harvested Rhubarb

First, chop up the rhubarb leaves.  You need about twice as much dry weight leaves as dry weight fabric.  Five leaves became about 450gm of chopped leaves. The dye is best for animal fibres like wool and silk rather than plant fibres like cotton and linen.

Chopped Rhubarb Leaves

You put the leaves in a pan and cover them with water, bring to the boil and simmer, covered, for an hour.  I didn't have a pan lid so I fashioned one out of  tinfoil.  It suggested using a stainless steel pan but I used an aluminium one because that's what I had.  You shouldn't use any pans that you use for cooking food and as the fumes are toxic you need to do this in a well ventilated area or outside!

Strained Rhubarb Mordant/Dye

Let the mixture cool and then strain the rhubarb leaves and discard.  The remaining solution is now ready to use.

Fabric Submerged in Rhubarb Solution

Next, add the damp fabric and yarn.  You should have washed everything you are adding to the solution to remove any dressings that are on the fabrics/yarns that may affect the uptake of the dye.  I added a piece of wool blanket and what I thought were 2 different thicknesses of wool yarn.

Fabric after Simmering in Rhubarb Solution

Bring it to the boil and simmer, covered, for about an hour.  I then left mine to cool overnight.  After that the dyed items need to be thoroughly rinsed and washed. It was a lovely day so I pegged my fabric and yarns out to dry...

Fabric and Yarn Drying after Washing

You can see the results here.  One of the yarns must have been a mix of wool and other fibres as the dye uptake was very much paler...

Yarn Showing Original & Dyed Colours

And here's the blanket with a piece of the original to show the colour change...

Fabric Showing Original & Dyed Colours

The colour is a sort of mustard/ochre colour.  I knitted up the darker rhubard dyed yarn into some tree brooches...

Tree Brooches Knitted With Rhubarb Dyed Yarn

which you can find in my Folksy shop here.  They will add nicely to my forest of tree brooches...

Other Tree Brooches

Hope you found this interesting.  Have you tried any natural dyeing?