My Journey
Using Plants to Produce Dyes & Botanical Prints
My journey started with ceramics after training as a teacher and specialising in ceramics. When I returned to Maldon, I started a business at the Oakwood Arts Centre in selling my own ceramic designs. 40 years later after inheriting my family’s farm I returned to Maldon again. I had completed my Masters in textiles and was working in Suffolk, as a professional textile artist using plants to make coloured dyes and botanical prints from plants.
In 1965 archaeologists excavated an Anglo-Saxon site at Lofts farm where I live, and they found evidence of a complete settlement including a weavers’ house. The post holes and weights of the loom were found. I have other historical links including a great great great grandfather who was a silk weaver. He lived in the Cressing area and probably worked for the Courtald factory as a home worker. He had his own loom and died in 1912. I remember my aunt Jill Goodwin with her skeins of dyed wool hanging above the Aga in her kitchen living in Great Braxted. Her book A Dyers Manual is still widely used. In 2019 I inherited Lofts farm, my family home and felt a connection these peoples especially those who also created textiles on this land and am proud of continuing a family connection with textiles.
Colour Naturally
My work and my business, Colour Naturally, focuses on using plants and natural sources to create coloured dyes. After studying Textiles and completing my Masters degree I have continued to develop my knowledge of natural dyes and the magic of discovering new plants that give colour. I have given Talks and delivered dye workshops to share my passion for natural dyes and the importance of being sustainable when working with textiles.
The Dye Garden at Lofts was started in 2019 in an area of the farmyard where the straw was stacked. There are more than 20 species of plants now providing the majority of the materials for my natural dyes and botanical prints. Visitors to the Dye Garden from various groups have seen how the different parts of the plants are processed and the different colours they reveal.
My Progress
Since taking on the farm, the cattle sheds and yard have been renovated and are used for Colour Naturally workshops and a studio where I work. I enjoy developing my own designs and modify the colours to extend my range of colours. There are regular Dyeing and Botanical Printing workshops at the Workshop and monthly Dye Clubs for those who enjoy developing projects with textiles and paper.
During my studies for a Master’s degree I was able to research the extraction of colour and develop a greater understanding and knowledge of the dyeing process. I am using that knowledge to experiment with new plants and continue to learn from other practitioners. In 2020 I joined India Flint on her workshop in Brittany. India is from Australia and pioneered the research into Botanical prints where heat and moisture are used to transfer images from plants onto textiles and paper. Now botanical prints are an important part of my practice and my designs.