turmeric/manjal dye

probably the easiest of all the dyes is turmeric. especially in india, where it is so abundant. turmeric is one of the few dyes that you can prepare in a cold bath - no energy is needed to heat the dye stuff. we simply put 100 grams of turmeric powder in this bucket of cold water. used rubber bands to create resist patterns and then dropped our cloth inside. we left our fabric overnight, just to soak in the color. no mordant used on this cotton, which was actually an old veshti!

fabric flowers

i love being send on a mission. my sister, who is getting married in august, is making fabric hair clips and boutonierres for all her guests, so she's asked me to pick up a variety of fabrics here in india for her project. luckily i stumbled upon dastkar andhra's exhibition which is running now in chennai. they are an ngo that works on preserving natural dye traditions as well as handloom fabrics. i ammended my purchases there with some lovely silks from RaSi, a mylapore insitution next to the Kabbali Koil. using the inspiration board she gave me i selected a number of fabrics. i had a lovely assortment of green shades for the leafs, but unfortunately they got sent back to the US with my mom! maybe we'll get a photo of them soon to post.

treasures from anokhi

hi friends! we've south india where we'll be spending the next few months. it is just wonderful to be back here. the weather is so pleasant in december, though the first few days of our arrival were completely washed out due to the leftover monsoon rains. i've been enjoying the coffee soo much, the food and especially the guavas, which are in their prime.
no trip to india would be complete for me with out an immediate stop to Anokhi to get some beautiful salwar sets and miscellaneous textiles. each year i am impressed with the new prints they have and increasingly zero waste production.
Anokhi has been know for over 40 years for it's environmentally and socially responsible business practices, employing women, paying fair wages and using organic cottons and plant dyes.
Everything is hand embroidered and hand block printed. They have shops all over India, but their homepase is in Jaipur where they also have a textile museum.

fibers & dyes

look at these gorgeous colors from nature! they were made by students of Sasha Duerr Fossel's Soil to Studio Class, Garden volunteer Cynthia Dakopolos and yours truly. I am so inspired by the depth and range of each one. The photos don't do justice, so please come visit the fiber & dye exhibit at the UC Botanical Garden.

http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu/root_images/programs/winter_10/fiber_dye.html

hapazome = brilliant

i recently learned about something called "hapazome" or flower pounding. a couple of weekends ago, the ecological artist rebecca burgess came to the uc botanical garden to teach a wonderful day long workshop on native plant dyes. little did we know that we'd leave knowing all that and more! i was enchanted with hapazote. the amazing textile artist india flint apparently coined the term. it is a way of using fresh flowers and immediately extracting the pigments and sealing them into our clothes or other fabrics. it was so easy, so gratifying and so beautiful.

you begin by laying down your piece of fabric. we used t-shirt scraps. then you lay fresh flower petals on the cloth as you'd like. we used a few such as nasturtium, pansy, cosmos.

then you lay another piece of cloth over the flowers-- if your using a t-shirt or big piece of fabric you can simply fold over the cloth. we then sprayed the fabric with water and soda ash or wood ash mixed in a spray bottle. when the cloth is saturated you can begin pounding:

my favorite thing about it is this: the flowers fade, but then, once they do you can keep pounding new flowers into your cloths or sheets or any fabrics to create these beautiful collages of your history and the flowers you've come across. the fabrics become histories of our lives and beautiful stories of our natural world. i LOVE it! thank you rebecca for teaching me this beautiful art and to your wonderful brother michael who took this great photos.

more from the green gala- these ones by david gilbert

OCELOT: hand dyed using itajime shibori technique in San Francisco

Jonathan David Baker's multi-directionally pleated dress made with seaweed and organic cotton, tux jacket made with recycled nylon and recycled tire rubber

TINC: designed by Savannah Knoop made with sea weed and wood pulp, peace silk, and organic cotton canvas

ashley helvey's d felted organic wool dress from a predator friendly farm

the moon: lace pillow lava dress: vintage slip, lace bits, silk and cotton handkerchiefs, napkins and doilies. annatto dyed silk shirts over dyed with black walnut hull

mr. larkin at the botanical garden's green gala

fashion show in the redwoods: sasha duerr & ashley helvey : photography by cara mia

weaving in traditional pit looms

unbelievable combination of colors

sewing at the fabric society formerly known as ambatalia