Natural Textile Dyeing Weekend
with Flora Arbuthnott
12th - 14th October 2018
Double occupancy
Single occupancy
Spend a weekend in the beautiful landscape of Abbey Home Farm exploring natural dyeing for textiles using plants grown and gathered on the farm. Come away with three dyed skeins of yarn, some recipes, and fabric samples dyed a variety of colours.
Going through the process from plant to fibres, we will be harvesting dye plants that have been grown on the farm to dye organic yarn from the Abbey Home Farm sheep, and possibly some organic cotton.
We will be using a range of plants including classic medieval dye plants such as madder and weld, dye plants that are easy to grow, such as hopi black sunflowers, and coreopsis, and plants you may already have growing in your garden, such as rosemary, buddleia, yew, and bay.
We will use non- toxic plant based mordanting (colour fixing) processes.
We will explore the magic of dyeing with japanese indigo (Persicaria tinctoria), a source of indigo that is easy to grow in the uk. Using a method following the work of Japanese master dyer Yoshioka to produce a soft turquoise.
All materials are included, including three skeins of organic yarn worth £12 each.
More yarn will be available on the day.
The course starts on Friday evening and finishes before lunch on Sunday.
All food and accomodation included in the cost.
Eating
Much of the food served over the weekend is grown on the farm itself and is all cooked ON THE on the farm by our great café team and is 100% organic and also vegetarian. Start with a two course supper on the Friday evening, a good breakfast to get you going on Saturday morning followed by a light lunch and another veggie feast in the evening. Sunday will start with breakfast and there is the option after the course has finished to treat yourself to our traditional Sunday Roast with a meat option from the farm. Tea,coffee, herbal tea and homemade cordials will be available throughout the weekend. Alcohol will be available to buy in the evenings.
Sleeping
Abbey Home Farm is a 1600 acre mixed organic farm on the edge of Cirencester. Guests stay in The Orchard bedrooms, made from wood from the farm, nestled into the side of the wood overlooking the vegetable garden and beyond. All rooms open up onto a wide south-facing veranda and are ensuite with underfloor heating and organic cotton bed linen hand block printed in the farm's own tiny workshop in Rajasthan. There is a large communal space for eating, chatting and relaxing as well as an outdoor fire for finer nights.