Materials: Rose- Supply List.pdf
Level: All levels welcome

In this 3-day workshop you will learn the many facets of printing with leaves and other botanicals, as well as how to combine these prints with natural dyes to create richly colored art-to-wear scarves, yardage, garments, or wall art. We will be working with protein fibers- wool and silk, primarily different types of silk such as charmeuse, raw silk, tussah and eri silk.

The use of a wide variety of natural dyes such as logwood, cutch, black walnut, madder, and marigold will greatly extend the color palette of the piece, and Shanna’s unique mordant recipes will place your botanical prints beyond any you’ve previously seen. We will use plant dye extracts as well as fresh plant dyes.

You will learn about the relationship between mordant, leaf, dye, and fiber and why and how it all comes together in Botanical Print.

You will learn the importance of how to properly prepare the cloth for dyeing- an important part of the process. Proper scouring and mordanting for each type of cloth will be taught. Mordants are soluble metal salts which, when combined with natural dyes and the botanicals infuse the colors and prints of leaves into the fiber. These are permanent and will not wash out.

We will also prepare a home-made cellulose mordant for fibers such as cotton, rayon, bamboo, and linen, and you will be able to create a beautiful Tee shirt using leaves and dyes.

By the end of the three days you will have completed 4-6 silk scarves, a raw silk wall hanging, a special piece of your choice, and a tee shirt.