I wanted to make a large natural dye project which could serve to remind us that natural dyes can have high impact and that once all textiles were made using them. I chose to work in wool fabric as it was likely to show the dyes to the best advantage. The theme of the exhibition aligned with my aims in that a bright floral design would be suitable, probably in an album quilt style. I decided to represent garden plants for maximum impact, selecting those which have been used in dyeing. I first painted all the plants from life as my design source. I then dyed the backgrounds using indigo, forming three subtly different colourways for added interest (blue, purply blue overdyed with cochineal, and greeny blue overdyed with weld). I dyed all the fabrics for the flowers using only the three primary colours (cochineal, weld and indigo) and I was able to introduce variety by the use of alterants, varying length of dyeing and concentration of dyebath, and mixing the three dyes in varying proportions. Each petal and leaf was then cut out and applied to the background using raw edge machine applique and carefully matched woollen threads. The flowers were then embroidered lightly to bring out details using fine wool and silk threads dyed in the same way as the fabrics. The frames were added to give the central panels some space; these were dyed using cutch as it yields the exact colour I had in mind. The quilt was then constructed and the sashing added using a quilt-as-you-go technique and black wool, dyed using logwood and sumac from a historical recipe. The quilt was tricky to construct but ultimately I felt that the bargees, with their love of bright florals, would have approved.
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