kimono exhibition Red Kimono dyed with safflower, hemp design, Victoria & Albert museum

Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk at The Victoria & Albert Museum

Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk During my wanders around the Kimono Exhibition at the Victoria & Albert museum in London, I was particularly fascinated by the pieces that are hand-dyed with natural dyes using shibori techniques. A particular red kimono caught my attention, when reading about it I discovered a link between the hemp leaf which resembles the motif in the popular traditional shibori pattern called Asanoha. “Asa” means hemp and “ha” means leaf. Image credit © Victoria and Albert museum Read more…

Things to do during lockdown – Botanical Inspiration

Things to do during lockdown that will help you to find clarity, a healing and calming effect on your mind. These simple processes shall connect you with your creativity and encourage you to appreciate the natural world when navigating through difficult times. The next time you are out on your daily walk, whether you are in a city, town or countryside, you should be able to find an overgrown patch of greenery that may have common weeds that are extremely Read more…

How to dye fabric with dandelions – Natural dyes in spring

Begin this spring time project of dyeing fabric with dandelions by choosing your fabric which should be natural fabric like cotton, linen, bamboo or silk. These fabrics can be mordanted with alum which is a metallic salt, this can be found online and is used in cooking. Mordanting is a simple process but usually involves leaving the fabrics to soak for 24 hours. In my experience, to get the best colour you should use a mordant, to help the colour Read more…