Play and Explore with Dyeing in Your Kitchen

Most weaving guilds go quiet in the summer. After the June meeting and potluck, they usually don’t meet again until the following September. I’m not quite sure why this happens, although I’ve heard it harkens back to a time when many people lived on farms and they were kept busy in the summer growing and harvesting crops.

Conversely, I think of summer as a time to play and explore. That can mean many things, but one of the highlights of a fun summer is getting together with a few friends for a dye day. I’ve hosted more than a few in my own backyard that mainly involved simple-to-use dyes such as mud dyes and indigo dye kits. Other than safety protocols, such as not using food-preparation utensils and pots for our dyeing and wearing gloves and masks, these dye days tend to be unstructured.
Collect brown and purple onion skins, and you can use them for dyeing this summer. Photo by Annn Auza

Current Handwoven subscribers who would like to pay homage to the summer’s harvest while enjoying a stress-free dye day can use the download button below to get a PDF of In the Kitchen: Dye Recipes by Cathy Bullington with Michelle Cox.