Indigo Dyeing, Trash to Treasure

 We had lots of feedback about last week’s indigo dyeing workshop on DesignMatters. We’re so pleased you enjoyed it! As you may well be finding, indigo dyeing becomes quite compulsive and our vat is still going strong. I’ve topped it up and we had another indigo party and covered the lawn in a sea of blue! I reckoned it was quite likely that my grandma was the only person in their 90s dyeing their nighty blue in a garden that day. Who wants a boring white nighty anyway? The fun is, we have some builders here working at the moment and they are too polite to comment on what on earth we are doing!
In the workshop last week, I commented that colour theory goes out of the window with indigo overdyeing because the blue replaces the previous colour, rather than blending with it. So, for instance, indigo over red doesn’t give purple. I knew someone would let me know why and true to form, one of our knowledgable viewers wrote to tell me it’s all down to the hydros which works as a discharge agent. I’m planning on experimenting more with that and will keep you posted on the results…
In the meantime, here’s a little look at some of the stars of yesterday’s dyeing extravaganza.

Above: This one was wrapped around a plastic pipe and bound tightly to form pleats.
Above: A red fabric with a clamped and pegged resist. Amelie did this one!

There were of course shopping opportunities at the show and I treated myself to a a bit of dressmaking fabric. I’ve posted the rest of my haul over on my blog if you’d like to see what I’ll be sewing over the next few weeks.

New Video Workshop – Photographs + Sketchbooks

Now back to work! Over on the website we have a new video workshop for you. Join me in the studio for some sketchbook inspiration. I don’t know about you, but I had a ton of photos on my phone and never printed them out. Recently I’ve started using one of those apps to get some prints each month and I’m finding they’re perfect for use in my sketchbook. In this week’s video I’ll show you some of the pages and share my tips for how you can use photos in your own sketchbooks.
DMTV Members can view this video now, if you’re not a Member why not consider joining us? You can check out our free videos to give you a taste of what we offer and sign up for access to over 30 videos for just £12.

Thank you for reading our newsletter this week. We’ll be back again soon with more.
Love Linda and Laura xx