Silk fabric eco-dyed and hand-stitched by India Flint
This week I’m in Minneapolis, Minn. for the Surface Design Association Conference. This is my second time at SDA, and this time, I decided to give myself a gift: a workshop with an artist whose work I admire greatly. India Flint calls herself a “maker of marks, forest wanderer & tumbleweed, stargazer & stitcher, botanical alchemist & string twiner, working traveller, dreamer, sax player and occasional poet.” She is the author of Eco Colour: Botanical Dyes for Beautiful Textiles, which is a guide to coloring cloth using locally sourced plant materials.
I don’t remember now where I first heard of India, but somehow I found her blog and web site and fell in love with the extraordinary yet delicate beauty of the plant-dyed fabrics she creates. I bought her book last year, not only to find out the details of how to make these magical marks on cloth, but also because the book is just plain beautiful. It contains a wealth of information on the different plants that can be used as well as types of mordants that can be employed to improve the strength of the dye bonds produced. The most compelling thing about the process is that it doesn’t involve harmful chemicals and can be done fairly easily without the need for buying expensive equipment or materials.
India lives on her own farm in Southern Australia, but she travels the world and teaches extensively. This particular workshop is called “Enfoldments – A Traveler’s Notebook.” We’re combining the dyeing techniques with hand stitching and simple bookmaking techniques to “explore ways of recording and describing responses to place and country as a means of making sense of wherever
India began the class with the opening of a “bundle” she had created the previous day. A bundle is a length of fabric which is rolled up together with leaves and flower petals and other assorted bits and tied tightly around a stick, then submerged into a pot of water and given a gentle simmer for a prescribed amount of time. We would be making many bundles throughout the course of the week, and the the opening of one’s bundles after dyeing to see the lovely gifts granted from nature is a greatly anticipated event.
Fabric eco-dyed by India Flint
We then went outside for a “windfall walk,” the purpose of which is to gather leaves and flower petals that have fallen to the ground. Small bits of rusted metal and odd scraps of paper are also treasures to bring back for our books. Once back to the workshop, we used our harvest to create our own first bundles.
After learning the basic process, the next step was to start making the pages of our book. To that end, we were each given a sheet of heavy drawing/wash paper and given instructions to collage fabric and paper using thread and stitch – no glue. I got rather caught up in doing the stitching – I even took my piece back to my room that night to work on it some more. I do love to stitch on fabric, but I found it to be a lot more difficult on paper. If I’m going to be doing much more of this in future, I’m going to need more protection for my needle-grabbing fingers. My thumb was very sore after a couple of hours of doing this.
The second day, we started to make the books. India showed us a simple way to make a very basic artist’s book from a single sheet of paper with folding and cutting. Then we used the same dyeing principles with our folded books to get color on the pages. Although mine turned out rather pale, some of the others were quite spectacular.
What’s this? Natural dyes, hand stitching AND books? What a fabulous combination. You must be in heaven. Thanks for sharing so many pics.
Fascinating! You make it almost as good as being there. I love the way that large sheet of paper folds up into a little book too. Thank you.
Thank you for sharing this! Wish I could be there. How are the dorm accomodations?
Very interesting, Deidre. Thanks for all the information and pictures.
Thaank you so much for this step-by-step outline of India’s eco-dyeing method. I like your stitching and the soft colours you got. I was just wondering what was in the cooking pot besides water. I’m looking forward to Part II of your posting from the conference. What a joy it must be to be in the presence of India!
What a wealth of photos! Thanks for sharing so much detail, and envious of you being there and participating in great hands-on learning.
Thanks for sharing so thoroughly, I can almost feel what it’s like to be there and wish I really were. We had such a huge storm last night and so many leaves and petals on the ground. Your post has inspired me to go gathering and try making my own “bundle”.
spectacular post! ahhhh seeing/reading about India’s lovely work makes me proud to be an aussie….
I leapt across from India’s post. As a mother it is always nice to see what your children are up to when they are away for such along time. Thank you so much for the comprehensive coverage.
Thanks for posting these wonderful memories of the workshop.
How delightful. I SO wanted to take this class. I am teaching in August overlapping 2 other opportunities to be with her. So frustrating!
SDA was terrific again too. I did a short blog post on the windfallmaps exhibit of India’s at the Katherine Nash Gallery.
Thanks!