Botanical printing workshop
Sunday, August 3, 2025
Botanical printing, a.k.a. eco-printing, is a magical process of creating contact prints with leaves and flowers on cloth.
We’ll experiment with leaves and flowers printed onto a few different types of fabrics. For all fibers, the fabric need to be prepared with fixatives to receive the dyes, which I’ll do ahead of time.
You’ll come away with four types of fabric pieces, including a silk charmeuse bandana, a light silk scarf, a piece of linen-cotton fabric, and a piece of silk broadcloth material (which makes stunning prints!)–as well as a solid skill base for creating prints at home.
All are welcome – no previous dye or textile experience is necessary.
Held at Pumpkin Vine Family Farm in Somerville, from 10am – 2pm
$150 includes all materials
Let me know if you’d like to join us!
“Class size was perfect, location stunning, loved each student having their own table… that was especially helpful. You provided just the right amount of information to get us started and then trusted us to use that information to do what we envisioned…”
“It was interesting, intensive and wicked fun!”
“I had a wonderful time yesterday eco printing with you. I now understand just how complicated this process is with its many variables. I had no idea that you were doing so much prep work for us…we only did the exciting fun part. Thank you for setting us up to be so successful. While not all of my flowers and leaves left clear and perfect prints (I now realize that unpredictability is part of the magic) the results I got were beautiful. Many thanks for introducing us to the world of eco printing and helping us turn out such lovely pieces of cloth.”
Indigo and Shibori dye workshop
Saturday, August 30, 2025
In this introductory workshop, we’ll prepare an indigo vat together, and I’ll show you techniques for dipping your fabric to create even, lasting color. I’ll also go over some basic shibori fold and clamp resist techniques to create patterns on the fabric. You’ll come away with knowledge of how to prepare your material for dyeing, how to make an indigo vat at home, how to use and maintain the vat, as well as how to best care for your pieces once they’ve been dyed.
You’ll receive two bandanas to dye. If you’d like, you can bring a small item from home to dye as well (I’ll give you instructions ahead of time on the fabric types that are best for this kind of vat and how to properly wash your item in preparation).
All are welcome – no previous dye or textile experience is necessary.
Held at Pumpkin Vine Family Farm in Somerville from 9am – 12:30pm
$125 includes all materials
Coming soon…
Mordant printing workshop: creating designs on cloth with natural dyes
Mordant printing is an ancient technique for producing patterns and designs on fabric with natural dye colors. Mordants, or metallic salts such as alum and iron, are applied to fabric using blocks or paint brushes. When the piece is introduced to the dye bath, colors from the plant dyes show up in different shades on the cloth. It’s a fun and fascinating process that offers endless possibilities for creative expression.
I’ll be offering a two-part workshop in the Fall. Dates TBA!
Custom workshops
I offer custom fiber arts workshops on my homestead and at a neighboring farm in beautiful Midcoast Maine, both in groups and one-on-one. If you’re interested, get in touch – I’d love to talk with you about it!
Techniques include:
- Indigo and other natural dye processes
- Japanese shibori printing on cloth – stitch resist, clamping, and other forms of fabric manipulation
- Printing with clay paste resist
- Botanical printing
- Mordant printing with blocks
- Wet felting
