November Program — Zoom and in-person
November 14 @ 10:00 a.m.
Brandywine Town Center
4050 Brandywine Parkway — Wilmington, DE 19803
It’s hard to resist the temptation to try dyeing with almost any flower, leaf, bark or root once
one gets a taste of the beauty of yarns dyed with extracts from local plants — soft yellow
from Queen Anne’s Lace, rich yellow from goldenrod, orange-yellow from osage orange sawdust, intense bronze orange from Dyer’s Coreopsis, reds from madder, and of course, blue from indigo. This talk will cover some of the basics of natural dyeing, including the all-important step of mordanting fibers. The differences between dyeing plant and animal fibers, and the unique process for creating an indigo dye bath will be included. The presentation will include demonstrating dyeing in a few dye pots.
We will be meeting jointly with the Countryside Garden Club of Hockessin. The Garden Club
currently maintains the herb garden at Tweeds Tavern, a historic building in Hockessin. They are investigating whether to develop a dyers garden in this location.
Carol Ireland has been a member of Harmony Weavers Guild for about 20 years. She started on her fiber arts journey by learning to knit, crochet and sew from her mother. A weaving course in college was the start of her 50+ year interest in weaving. She’s been spinning for almost 30 years. After raising two daughters and retiring from DuPont (where she worked as a chemist for 32 years) she was able to devote more time to weaving. Natural dyeing was added to the mix primarily as a result of textile tours in Thailand, Laos, Mexico, Peru and Japan that included natural dyeing demonstrations and workshops.