#slow textiles

[bumblebeeappletree]

Sasha Duerr uses just about anything to dye clothing: from kitchen waste (coffee grounds, avocado pits, and onion skins) to invasive "weeds" (wild fennel, oxalis) to the leaves, fruit, or petals of nearly any tree or plant (maple, pear, cherry, fig, acorn, fern, dahlia, poppy, lavender, etc).

Inspired by permaculture, Duerr believes in a slower approach to textile dying- she founded the "Permacouture" Institute to help advance Slow Textiles- both as a way to respect the environment, but also because she believes that plant-based color is more beautiful and truly alive.

"Natural dyes harmonize with each other in a way that only botanical colors can,” she writes in her book The Handbook of Natural Plant Dyes(*). “A natural dye, a red for example, will include hints of blue and yellow, whereas a chemically produced red dye contains only a single red pigment, making the color less complex... The unique qualities of naturally dyed textiles can often make the color vibrate or glow, which is truly magical."

The colors produced by plants may be magical, but the process to create them- believes Duerr- is really quite simple. To prove just how accessible the organic botanical color really is, she helped create the Fiber and Dye Walk at the California College of Arts and Crafts (where she teaches). In a simple walk through the campus, there are over 30 plants and trees that can be used as dyes, including, apple, aloe, bamboo, cherry, eucalyptus, fig, ivy, olive, juniper, lily, rosemary, and wisteria.

This isn’t new information, as Duerr points out, during World War Two our grandparents were using things like red cabbage as a dye, but quickly the knowledge is becoming lost. When Duerr began to educate herself in organic botanical color sources, she turned to farmers and indigenous communities in an attempt to catalog what was once more common knowledge.

Duerr doesn’t want to teach the world to create color from our surroundings- in a sense Slow Color- simply so we’ll all become better stewards of nature and our shared culture, it’s also for us as human beings. “Much of what has become problematic in our modern lives,” she believes, “is related to our having forgotten how to connect with simple rhythms of nature”.

In this video, Duerr takes us for a tour of all the dye plants in the garden of a home she happens to be housesitting; she brews up a few batches of natural color from the leaves of a fern and fig and loquat trees; she gives us a tour of her natural-dyed wardrobe (including pieces from her bioregional knitwear collection Adie + George, created and run with partner Casey Larkin); and finally, she dyes a secondhand silk shirt for that evening’s event using the loquat leaves from the tree outside the house.

* Her book’s complete title is The Handbook of Natural Plant Dyes: Personalize Your Craft with Organic Colors from Acorns, Blackberries, Coffee, and Other Everyday Ingredients.

Original story here: http://faircompanies.com/videos/view/...

Adie+George: http://adieandgeorge.tumblr.com/

Sasha's book: http://www.timberpress.com/books/hand...

Originally posted on YouTube on February 13th 2012

[amandasmithtextiles]

There are so many different ways to get yellows! I’m going to dip this pomegranate dyed yarn in iron later to hopefully get some greys and greens.

[sheepyhollows]

Katrina Rodabaugh

[wildnaturalfree]

[bridget-harvey-blog]

Knitting Clock by Siren Elise Wilhelmsen

  image taken from here

Design Milk article here

Artists website here

This clock knits a 2m long scarf in a year!

[bridget-harvey-blog]

Slow Cloth

An interesting article here on Handeye Mag about slow cloth and cloth work.

[bridget-harvey-blog]

Slow Practices/Processes

Slow processes and what Slow means to me:  A partially finished series of ideas In my opinion Slow is a thought process or philosophy rather than a time reference – just because a task takes a long time does not mean it is a Slow task.  I feel that Slow can be defined as taking appropriate time compared to our perceived normal 21st century way of living (seen as Fast).  A Slow process to me is one that has been well considered and thus decided upon due to its appropriateness.  This consideration may only need to be undertaken once as the resulting information could be held in mind for future projects, or it may be that the thinking needs to be done every time a process is used.  Slow and working in a Slow manner is about appropriateness, in terms of material choices, process choices and intended outcomes of your processes; in this sense Slow relates to time because, by working within a Slow framework one allows oneself the time to consider the available options, regardless of the scale of operation. I feel that the following things should be considered as part of a Slow working process: What is the intended outcome of the process? What is the intended outcome for the series of processes, what are you intending to make? What impact does the process have environmentally, both small and large scale, and if negative, how could this be reduced? Also post-consumer use and recycling of the end product. This should lead to a list of ‘needs’ for the outcome, which should help determine which process is most appropriate.  I believe that Slow relates to processes in a decision making format – why use that process?  Is it the most appropriate for the intended outcome of the process?  I feel that one does not need to be personally involved in the process itself to consider it and its implications, also I feel that processes can be considered on an industrial scale.  One does not need to be an individual designer maker to work within a Slow framework/context, nor does one need to be a professional designer. Personally when deciding upon a process I use my STEER theory, developed to offer a framework for Slow design.  I take a few moments to consider what I need it to do (STOP), I then consider whether it will do that to the standard I need it to, be that finished perfection or experimental designing stages (THINK), I then might ask around or look online to see if there is any other way of doing it – is there a way better environmentally or more appropriate aesthetically (EXPLORE).  I then go ahead with the process I have decided upon and involve myself in my making process (ENJOY).  I will at some point look over what I have done and how I did it in order to establish if I was happy with it, practically, environmentally and aesthetically and how I would do it if I were to repeat that process (RETHINK).  Part of working Slowly is being willing to rethink, revisit ideas to rework them.  Particularly as someone who is concerned about the environmental impact of my work I find the ‘re-‘ stages of my work very interesting, and often they offer a lot to learn from. THOUGHTS: ‘The moral significance of work that grapples with material things may lie in the simple fact that such things lie outside the self’ (Crawford, M; Shop Classs as Soulcraft; 2009; p16)  ‘…severing of the cognitive aspects of manual work from its physical execution’ (Crawford, M; Shop Class as Soulcraft; Penguin 2009; p31) – I think Slow can help reconnect the two. ‘As to the hope of the product, I have said that Nature compels us to work for that.  It remains for us  to look to it that we do  really produce something an not nothing…’ (Morris, W; Useful Work Versus Useless Toil; Penguin 2008; p3)  ‘We shall not, therefore, be concerning ourselves with objects as defined by their functions or by the categories into which they might be subdivided for analytic purposes, but instead with the processes whereby people relate to them and with the systems of human behaviour and relationships that result therefrom.’ (Baudrillard, J; The System of Objects; Verso 2005; p2)

[bridget-harvey-blog]

slow quote

"A firm defense of quiet material pleasure is the only way to oppose the universal folly of Fast Life." http://www.slowfood.org.uk/Cms/Page/our-mission