Botanical Dyed Silk Rainbows

Create a kaleidoscope of colors on silk using just three natural dye colors. Often seen between stormy squalls on the Oregon Coast, rainbows are for many people a benevolent sign of hope, healing, and empowerment. This is a wonderful class for beginning natural dyers to experience some ancient colors from the earth while capturing a rainbow that can be wrapped around yourself or a loved one on dreary days. Indigo blue, red from madder root & cochineal bugs, and ancient weld yellow will combine to form oranges, greens and purples.

Iris Sullivan Daire is an artist and naturalist dyer who uses site specific pigments and dyes to add new layers of meaning to the narrative of her work. She relishes using science, metaphor and story to bring the materials to life while teaching.

Iris lives with her family next to the Columbia River in Astoria, Oregon. She grows traditional dye plants and has been quietly mapping the hidden colors contained within the native and invasive plants of the North Oregon Coast. She holds a BFA in fiber arts from University of Oregon and has been teaching for over 20 years.

Apron

Notebook

Long gloves

Comprehensive packets with instructions

Dye pots and equipment for dyeing

All dyes, including indigo vats

Prepared silk

Supplies needed for clamped shape resist