Expand your natural dye practice or dive right into the deep end! Explore screen printing techniques you can use at home without fancy equipment. Print with resists for the indigo vat, mordants for the dyepot, and with the dyes themselves. Along the way, gain a solid understanding of how dyes, mordants, and fibers interact to create vibrant natural colors. Forage for dyes on campus, bust myths, and fuse ancient traditions with new ideas. All levels welcome.

Where does color come from? Delve into the history, chemistry, and hands-on practice of making pigments and paint. Concoct your own palette of handmade watercolors inspired by artists’ recipes from the 14th to the 17th-century, including earth pigments, lake pigments from the dye garden, and charcoal combined with natural medium. Return home with a paint box of twelve watercolors, a sketchbook of recipes and swatches, and the knowledge to continue expanding your palette.

Explore the art of linoleum block carving and repeat pattern printing on fabric. Learn to design, carve your blocks, ink up, and print a variety of repeating patterns using transparent pigments with infinite color mixing options. Carving is done with an inexpensive set of tools that last a lifetime. Take home your hand-carved blocks, hand-printed fabrics, informational handouts, and printing skills for future projects. No experience necessary; note that carving is done with sharp tools.

Experiment with eco-printing as a contact printing technique. Place leaves over mordanted cloth and roll them tightly in a bundle, then boil or steam the bundle to transfer the tannins and some pigment from within the leaves/flowers. Scour and mordant your fabrics and forage on the Folk School grounds for interesting botanicals. Review your results and adjust steam time and design layout. Cellulose will be used, but full instructions will be given for protein fibers.

Combine silk dyeing and felt making to achieve colorful nuno-felt (fine wool wet-felted to silk fabric). Experiment with surface design techniques using acid dyes, fine merino wool, and silk fabrics to create pieces, patches, or yardage. Use embroidery to build more layers of color and texture. Bring an exciting focus to your quilt, garment, book, or interior décor. All levels are welcome; this class requires some muscle and periods of standing.

Learn Nigerian Yoruba batik–adire alabela–which means wax resist. Apply wax to fabric using wood stamps, stencils, or foam rubber/free hand. This class is for those who would like to experiment with more color and how to use multiple colors within their batik. Indigo, the color of love, will be applied at the end of the process. Also, learn the personal history, culture, and meaning behind the designs used. All levels welcome.

...or rug, tapestry, and socks. If you weave, crochet, or knit, personalize your pieces by acquiring the age-old skills of combing, carding, natural dyeing, and spinning. Make your own yarn to add visual interest, softness, color, and texture to any fiber project. Discover the qualities of various breeds of sheep, and play with color, fiber blends, and simple novelty effects. The Folk School has all the equipment needed for this yarn-intensive week for beginning to intermediate students.

Set and use all-natural indigo vats with no harmful chemicals. Experiment with all aspects of shibori, including itajime and arashi, as well as some very fun and unusual ways of creating pattern resists with indigo. Explore the use of stitch resist to make beautiful designs. Discover how to keep your whites very white and crisp and how to finish your fabrics. All levels welcome.

Learn to dye wool yarn to produce the effects you want in your knitted projects. Explore space dyeing for repeated colors, random dyeing, dyeing for stripes and dots, dip dyeing, as well as gradients. Cover studio safety, dyeing safely in your home, designing colorways, preparing your yarn, and matching your yarn to a project. No previous dyeing experience required; crocheters, weavers, and spinners welcome. 

Master fiber reactive dyes! Explore expert tips for ice dyeing, low water immersion, Shibori, and more. Fiber reactive dyes work on all plant-based fibers like cotton, linen, bamboo, hemp, rayon, viscose, modal, etc. Over-dye to give a face lift and update the clothes in your closet and fabrics in your stash to be brand new colors. Keep older textiles from ending up in the landfill. T-shirts, aprons, undies, kitchen linens, pillow cases, and fabric yardage welcome.

Experiment with all aspects of shibori–including itajime and arashi–as well as some very fun and unusual ways of creating pattern resists with indigo. Set and use all-natural indigo vats with no harmful chemicals and explore the use of stitch resist to make beautiful designs. Also, discover how to keep your whites very white and crisp and how to finish your fabrics. All levels welcome.

Feel the excitement of creating a garment entirely from scratch with your own unique colors, patterns, and fit. Use low-immersion dyeing to create beautiful yardage from white fabric. Make simple, low-tech silkscreens to print fabrics with your own hand-drawn designs. Draft a simple pattern, and sew. This class is suitable for a wide variety of students of different skill levels.

Become a fashion designer as you create your own nuno dress or coat from concept to clothing. Learn resist pattern making for any size and pick up garment construction and layout tricks. With wool, soapy water and agitation, simultaneously create a completely new fabric and a wearable garment. We wrap up the class with finishing tips and troubleshooting tricks. Some previous felt making experience helpful, but not required. $

...or rug, tapestry, and socks. If you weave, crochet, or knit, personalize your pieces by acquiring the age-old skills of combing, carding, natural dyeing, and spinning. Make your own yarn to add visual interest, softness, color, and texture to any fiber project. Discover the qualities of various breeds of sheep, and play with color, fiber blends, and simple novelty effects. The Folk School has all the equipment needed for this yarn-intensive week for beginning to intermediate students.

Explore how locally grown plants can produce a full rainbow of hues. Identify dye plants and understand how to incorporate them into a home landscape, including best growing conditions, harvesting methods, and storage practices.Through guided experimentation, gain confidence working with dye recipes on both protein and cellulose. Experience multiple mordanting and natural dyeing techniques, including eco-printing, indigo shibori, and surface design.

Enjoy a hands-on exploration of traditional adire eleko and tie-dyeing techniques with a native Nigerian artist as your instructor. Learn about the history and meanings behind these traditional designs within the culture of the Yoruba people. Prepare and create patterns and designs using stitch resist, casava paste, a small broom, a chicken feather, and vibrant indigo to produce beautiful cloth. All levels welcome.

Match different fleeces for different types of yarn for weaving and sing about it! Review, prepare and spin a lovely long wool for warp and a plump woolen for weft. Experienced spinsters will revisit hand carding and other styles of fiber preparation while recreating old-timey fabrics like linsey woolsey, dyed in the wool, piece and yarn dyed plain weave. Use pre-warped and other small looms. Touch on natural dyeing, spinning methods, lessons in consistency, loom set up, and fulling. Spinning ex

Shibori is much more than tie-dye! At least four shibori techniques will be covered including itajime, nui, arashi and kanoko. Two types of dyes will be used–acid and MX–and almost any type of natural fiber can be used. Students may choose to work on a variety of instructor provided projects, including yardage and silk scarves, or bring other suitable items (clothing, etc.) from home. The beautiful, colorful pieces produced will delight students of all levels. $

Work with pure local beeswax to create multilayered batik fabrics and garments of your own invention. Use methods that are easy to recreate in your home studio, garage, or anywhere. Indian wood blocks, Malaysian metal stamps, Indonesian tjanting tools, and paintbrushes can all be used to make resist designs on cloth. First, we wax them, then we dye them! Learn about fabric preparation, dye chemistry, layering your colors, and wax removal. Stay for the following week’s class, Woodblock Batik–Bees