Date/Time
Date(s) - 06/05/2023
11:00 am - 4:00 pm
Location
Trillium Park
Categories
6 Saturdays, 11am-4pm
May 6, June 10, July 15, August 5, September 9, October 14
Trillium park (outside site)
Potluck lunch
Join Anna Heywood-Jones and Sharon Kallis for a collaborative learning exchange that will explore the steps of processing nettle stalks into spun line or cordage and growing Japanese indigo for pigment extraction. In later sessions, we will work with various indigo vat types and create handwoven textile swatches or sculptural forms with our blue nettle fibres.
Monthly sessions will allow for the observation of the seasonal rhythms of both plants. Tending the nettles in spring, to early seasonal harvests for fibre, and autumn retting. Indigo seeds will be sowed and transplanted in the spring for the summer and fall harvest and pigment extraction.
Nettle Journey: each participant will receive a bundle of retted nettles in the first session, and we begin by learning how to strip the fibres from the stalks. Subsequent sessions will move from fibre processing to spinning the fibres. Technical support will be provided for spinning nettle line and tow, and cordage making options will be available for those who find spinning overwhelming.
Indigo Journey: over the course of the sessions, we will collectively sow seed starts, transplant, tend, and harvest the indigo plants. Our first indigo vat will use commercially produced indigo powder to describe the process of indigotin pigment extraction. When it’s time to harvest our own plants, fresh leaves will be taken through fruit and iron vat reduction methods.
After our nettle threads have been dyed with indigo, various options for off-loom weaving samplers will be introduced. The intention being for each participant to create something with their dyed fibre, such as denim patches, woven pouches, or other small woven forms that celebrate the beauty of each individual blue nettle thread.
All tools provided for in session use, personal drop spindles and pet combs or carders for fibre processing will be useful between sessions.
Visit here to learn more about how our tiered pricing works.
Bookings
This event is fully booked.