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Dye workshop. Long train ride each way spent spinning, lunch and post workshop by waterfront, and dying wool with peppermint gum, madder, cochineal, brown onion skins, and a bit of post mordanting iron.
Ok, cotton spun and the single looks good (around 50-60 threads per inch), which is still a thick cotton yarn (600+ threads per inch is possible apparently).
(Yes, the spindle is rather full. It is also 100% long staple Sea Island cotton, so it holds together well).
Now the issue is what to do with this next. I don't think there is enough to weave on a loom with, which seems like the most obvious use. It is too fine for knitting or crocheting without making it into a 6-8 ply yarn. Maybe some kind of lace or needle weaving?
Pigeon warp begins with maaaaaaaths. The hardest part is trying to plan the not-quite-random colour and texture blends that I want - the arithmetic will be fine, but weaving has so many choices which must be fixed in advance for things which I want to feel organic and spontaneous. Hence testing out warp arrangements (adding a bit of texture/shine with linens and mercerised cotton) by wrapping yarn around a ruler.
Sampling with the supervisor; first proper towel underway, one plain bar and one textured bar; like 5 minutes of weaving and then 40 minutes to unweave and re-weave the section when I realised I had forgotten a chunk of the pattern 3 times 👀
T-check pigeon in progress, the weft is all black but I still wanted some bars for interest so I made a little undulating section which I feel looks quite feathery, not pictured: lots more unweaving.
I didn't photograph the barless towel because there was nothing new to show, so now we reach the last towel, a very literal interpretation of the checker wing pattern! The change of pattern required cutting off the other towels and re-threading the loom (a pain), plus it's my first time using the double shuttle (amazing).
I want to make this project again and I will choose a different, more organic interpretation for the checker pigeon, but this method was straightforward and therefore I'm actually doing it, which makes it perfect even if I don't like it that much. And I still managed to give him some funky bars.
"From researching historic twill patterns in museum collections to dyeing wool with Kool-Aid, Diné (Navajo) weaver and instructor Venancio Aragón interlocks research and experimentation to expand the visual and technical vocabularies of Diné weaving. Working on the Diné upright loom, Aragón is part of a generation of Diné weavers who reinterpret ancestral knowledge through experimentation, carrying the medium forward on their own terms. As he stated in our interview with him, “I am not a purist.”
Based in Farmington, New Mexico, Aragón is trained in cultural anthropology and Native American and Indigenous studies, currently teaching at Diné College, the Navajo Nation’s tribal college. Before transitioning to full-time weaving and teaching, Aragón worked as an interpretive park ranger at the Mesa Verde, Aztec Ruins, Bandelier, and Petroglyph National Monuments, where he led tours and developed public education initiatives. He was born to the Tó’aheedlíinii (The Water Flow Together People) clan and born for the Naakaii (Mexican people). His maternal grandfather is of the Tsénahabiłnii (Sleeping Rock) clan, and his paternal grandfather is of the Naakaii (Mexican people)."
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Embroidered Sculptures Recreate Lifelike Mushrooms, Lichen, and Fungi in Thread
by Grace Ebert - Colossal, February 25, 2022
Amanda Cobbett suspends a singular moment in the fleeting lives of fungi by stitching their likeness in thread. The textile artist photographs and gathers specimens that she brings back to her Surrey Hills-based studio, where she finds fibers to match pale green lichens and golden chanterelles. Using a free-motion embroidery technique on a sewing machine, she then stitches multiple layers onto a piece of dissolvable fabric that, once the organism is complete, is washed away to leave just the mushroom or mossy bark intact. As a scroll through her Instagram reveals, the resulting sculptures are so realistic in color, shape, and size that it’s difficult to distinguish the artist’s iterations from their counterparts.
Currently, Cobbett is preparing a collection that will head to the Artful Craft exhibition at Make Southwest, which opens on April 2.
Vinegar is not a mordant in dyeing. It is a modifier!
The majority of natural dyes, whether chemical dyes or natural dyes, adhere to the fiber through a chemical bond. With straight dye and fibe
How can I make botanical colors last using natural methods? First of all, we have to define natural. Then, let’s define mordants. I will tal
I vetted the above, and it's mostly all correct...but here's some modern science to throw in the face of every one of the above bloggers because we are now exploring bio-mordants and technically not every mordant is a metal salt:
Natural dyes demand has increased due to their exceptional properties such as non-toxic, sustainable extraction methods, effluent free appli
Due to the increasing pressure on environmentally friendly approaches and sustainable production processes, the textile dyeing industry has
if you want the technical layout of it all:
Renzo Shamey
Preface
List of Topics
About the Editor
Section Editors
Contributors
A
Achromatic Color
Achromatopsi
Springer International P
a few snapshots of how my residency is going so far. i volunteer at a museum trust and they kindly invited me to do an artist's residency until the 4th of october.
i am going to be away for two weeks so i thought now was a good time to look back on what ive done so far since the start of my residency two weeks ago.
i am working an uneven twill (i can never remember which way around 3/1 and 1/3 twills go) and this means each side is different. one is warp facing (longer vertical threads you prepare before weaving) and the other is weft facing (shorter horizontal threads you add with a shuttle to weave).
i am going to use the weft facing side, potentially for a bag of some kind but i am just in love with the colours. the weft yarn is a single spun tweed yarn i found on a market stall and is a lovely coarse tough wool that is a purple-pink and with its tweed neps it has a heather atmosphere to it. the warp threads are very fine worsted spun wools and the colours of which are picked out from the tweed flecks in the weft yarn, creating a very cosy looking cloth in my opinion.
im going to be up in northumbria, rather than south east scotland (a weird thing happened, very confusing) for the remainder of june but i am already so excited to get back to my cloth. i will take some photos but any on my camera will have to wait until i can get a new laptop. unfortunately the data couldn't be extracted from my hard drive (i may have to look for someone very expensive instead) so i may have lost three years worth of photos and stories which has been very distressing but working on this twill has brought me a lot of comfort.
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Lost my mind a little and added (if my math is correct) 5,615 beads to Nim Teasdale's Odenwald pattern. Anything worth doing is worth overdoing!
The goal was “soothingly weighted but not uncomfortable to wear, even as someone with chronic pain.” It could have been a little heavier, so maybe I’ll make a shawl with larger beads another time, but I’m very pleased with this one. I used size 6/0 seed beads, applied as I go with a .6mm crochet hook.
Yarn-wise, used 2 cakes of YarnArt Flowers. I knitted the fully purple sections from both, then knitted all the way through the yellow-oranges with a single ball. When I hit the beginning of red-oranges, I used yarn from both cakes, alternating between them. (Not the entirety of both, I played it by ear to make sure I made it through the full rainbow.)
I do have edited charts with bead placements. I will only share them with Nim's permission.
I've done A LOT of knitting/crochet this year while chronic illness kept me from my sewing machine, but I'm feeling much better now. There will be new quilts to look forward to soon, plus a few more yarn crafts to share in the meantime!
Finally bought some dye and have been having so much fun with optical color mixing. I decided to start with cmyk primaries to get some vibrant color options.
So far I've only mixed up the main batch of colors, but I'll split them up and create a palatte of tints and shades once I have access to a scale again.
I don't have any fancy tools and have been blending the fiber by hand, so it's probably best I have a forced break for the sake of my fingers. Once I'm done I should have a very useful set of 57 2g swatches to play with! (Plus 5 more for a set of grayscale swatches)
If I'm still up for it, I might repeat the whole thing with my classic red, yellow, blue primary dye set. For a truly massive set of heather swatches.
I'll create a comprehensive guide to all the color mixes and my process once I'm done, but in the meantime here's a mixing guide for the colors I've already done!
The ratios are presented in the same order as the wool swatches in the photo above it. I didn't simplify any of the ratios so you'll have to deal with 2:2s instead of 1:1s, oops.
For anyone curious, I used brilliant yellow, deep magenta, and caribbean blue from Dharma dyes on their corriedale wool for my base colors.
see this is exactly what I'm talking about. this labour is so incredibly invisibilised that there are real human beings, walking about amongst us, leading normal lives, etc., who earnestly believe that machines can make an item of clothing from start to finish.
Hey just in case someone on here doesn’t quite understand how labor intensive making a garment is, here is a list of things that (to the best of my knowledge) cannot be done by machine alone, from a costumer/tailor in training
Cutting - in my opinion, the most labor intensive part of the process. The amount of time/effort needed varies depending on the pattern and if seam allowance is included or marked separately, but no matter what this process can not be done by machine. Each and every panel and piece of fabric that goes into a garment must be cut by hand by a person.
Pinning/clipping - pinning (or clipping) is the stage at which you align the pieces you are going to be stitching together and hold them together with — you guessed it! — either pins or clips. This can not be done by machine.
Stitching - the actual sewing. This can be done by a sewing machine, but that machine still needs to be operated by a human being.
Ironing/pressing - two words that mean the same thing. The iron itself is a machine, but once again, it needs to be operated by a human being.
Finishing - depending on the technique you use, there are certain finishing techniques that can only be done by hand. But, let’s assume we’re talking about fast fashion, which is usually just finished with a simple overlock/serger. Once again: these machines need to be operated by people.
These are just the basic steps to making a garment, and don’t include textile arts that I am not as knowledgeable about, such as weaving, knitting, and crochet. Also, it is important to note that there are a lot of things that can only be done by hand, such as certain stitches and decorative techniques.
Also, the machinery being operated in textile factories is not equivalent to a domestic sewing machine. We’re talking about one of these guys:
See that gray cylinder under the table, behind the knee pedal? That’s the motor. These machines can sew through your fingers bones and all and not even stop. The people in these factories and sweatshops are operating heavy machinery, and are subject to all the risk that comes with that in addition to all of the work I mentioned above.
Please respect textile workers and continue the fight to eliminate the use of sweatshops and exploited labor in the fashion industry!
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It was a Tuesday in 1981 when the San Francisco police kicked in the door.
Inside the small apartment, they expected to find a hardened criminal. They expected a drug kingpin. They expected resistance.
Instead, they found a 57-year-old waitress in an apron.
The air in the apartment smelled sweet, thick with chocolate and something earthier. On the kitchen counter, cooling on wire racks, were 54 dozen brownies.
The police officers began bagging the evidence. They confiscated nearly 18 pounds of marijuana. They handcuffed the woman, whose name was Mary Jane Rathbun.
She didn't look scared. She didn't look guilty.
She looked at the officers, smoothed her apron, and reportedly said, "I thought you guys were coming."
She was booked into the county jail. The headlines wrote themselves. A grandmother running a pot bakery. It seemed like a joke to the legal system, a quirky local news story about an older woman behaving badly.
But Mary wasn't baking for fun. And she certainly wasn't baking for profit.
To understand why Mary risked her freedom, you have to understand the silence of the early 1980s.
San Francisco was gripping the edge of a cliff. A mysterious illness was sweeping through the city, specifically targeting young men. Later, the world would know it as AIDS. But in those early days, it was just a death sentence that no one wanted to talk about.
Families were disowning their sons. Landlords were evicting tenants. Even doctors and nurses, paralyzed by the fear of the unknown, would sometimes leave food trays outside hospital doors, afraid to breathe the same air as their patients.
Men in their twenties were wasting away in sterile rooms, dying alone.
Mary knew what it felt like to lose a child.
Years earlier, in 1974, her daughter Peggy had been killed in a car accident. Peggy was only 22. The loss had hollowed Mary out, leaving a space in her heart that nothing seemed to fill.
When the judge sentenced Mary for that first arrest, he ordered her to perform 500 hours of community service. He likely thought the manual labor would teach her a lesson.
He sent her to the Shanti Project and San Francisco General Hospital.
It was a mistake that would change American history.
Mary walked into the AIDS wards when others were walking out. She didn't wear a hazmat suit. She didn't hold her breath. She saw rows of young men who looked like ghosts—skeletal, in pain, and terrified.
She saw "her kids."
She began mopping floors and changing sheets. But soon, she noticed something the doctors were missing. The harsh medications the men were taking caused violent nausea. They couldn't eat. They were starving to death as much as they were dying of the virus.
Mary knew a secret about the brownies she had been arrested for.
She knew they settled the stomach. She knew they brought back the appetite. She knew they could help a dying man sleep for a few hours without pain.
So, she made a choice.
She went back to her kitchen. She fired up the oven. She started mixing batter, not to sell, but to save.
Every morning, Mary would bake. She lived on a fixed income, surviving on Social Security checks that barely covered her rent. Yet, she spent nearly every dime on flour, sugar, and butter.
The most expensive ingredient—the cannabis—was donated. Local growers heard what she was doing. They began dropping off pounds of product at her door, free of charge.
She packed the brownies into a basket and took the bus to the hospital.
She walked room to room. She sat by the bedsides of men who hadn't seen their own mothers in years. She held their hands. She told them jokes. And she gave them brownies.
"Here, baby," she would say. "Eat this. It'll help."
And it did.
Nurses watched in amazement as patients who hadn't eaten in days began to ask for food. The constant retching stopped. The mood on the ward shifted from despair to a quiet sort of comfort.
Mary Jane Rathbun became "Brownie Mary."
For over a decade, this was her life. She baked roughly 600 brownies a day. She went through 50 pounds of flour a week. She became the mother to a generation of lost boys.
She washed their pajamas. She attended their funerals. She held them while they took their last breaths.
She did this while the government declared a "War on Drugs."
By the early 1990s, the political climate was hostile. Politicians were competing to see who could be "tougher" on crime. Mandatory minimum sentences were locking people away for decades.
In 1992, at the age of 70, Mary was arrested again.
This time, the stakes were lethal. She was charged with felonies. The district attorney looked at her rap sheet and saw a repeat offender. He threatened to send her to prison.
One prosecutor famously whispered to a colleague that he was going to "kick this old lady's ass."
They underestimated who they were dealing with.
They thought they were prosecuting a drug dealer. In reality, they were attacking the most beloved woman in San Francisco.
When the news broke that Brownie Mary was facing prison, the city erupted.
It wasn't just the activists who were angry. It was the doctors. It was the nurses. It was the parents who had watched Mary care for their dying sons when the government did nothing.
Mary turned her trial into a pulpit.
She arrived at court not as a defendant, but as a grandmother standing her ground. The media swarmed her. Reporters asked if she was afraid of prison. They asked if she would stop baking if they let her go.
Mary looked into the cameras, her voice gravelly and firm.
"If the narcs think I'm gonna stop baking brownies for my kids with AIDS," she said, "they can go fuck themselves in Macy's window."
The quote ran in newspapers across the country.
The court didn't stand a chance.
Testimony poured in. Doctors from San Francisco General Hospital wrote letters explaining that Mary’s brownies were medically necessary. Patients testified that she was an angel of mercy.
The charges were dropped.
Mary walked out of the courthouse a free woman. But she didn't go home to rest. She realized that her personal victory wasn't enough. As long as the law was broken, her "kids" were still in danger.
She needed to change the law.
August 25 was declared "Brownie Mary Day" by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. It was a nice gesture, but Mary wanted policy, not plaques.
She teamed up with fellow activist Dennis Peron. Together, they opened the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club—the first public dispensary in the United States. It was a safe haven where patients could get their medicine without fear of arrest.
But Mary wanted more. She wanted the state of California to acknowledge the truth.
She campaigned for Proposition 215. She traveled the state, despite her failing health. She spoke in her simple, direct way. She didn't talk about liberties or economics. She talked about compassion. She talked about pain.
She forced voters to look at the issue through the eyes of a grandmother.
In 1996, Proposition 215 passed. California became the first state to legalize medical marijuana.
It was a domino effect. Because one woman refused to let her "kids" suffer, the public perception of cannabis shifted. The Economist later noted that Mary was single-handedly responsible for changing the national conversation.
She never got rich.
She had always joked that if legalization ever happened, she would sell her recipe to Betty Crocker and buy a Victorian house for her patients to live in.
She never sold the recipe. She never bought the house.
Mary Jane Rathbun died in 1999, at the age of 77. She passed away in a nursing home, poor in money but rich in legacy.
Today, over 30 states have legalized medical marijuana. Millions of people use it to manage pain, seizures, and nausea.
Most of them have never heard of Mary.
They don't know that their legal prescription exists because a waitress in San Francisco decided that the law was wrong and her heart was right.
They don't know about the 600 brownies a day.
They don't know about the thousands of hospital visits.
Mary didn't set out to be a hero. She told the Chicago Tribune years before she died, "I didn't go into this thinking I would be a hero."
She was just a mother who had lost her daughter, trying to help boys who had lost their way.
She proved that authority doesn't always equal morality.
She proved that sometimes, the most patriotic thing a citizen can do is break a bad law.
Every August, a few people in San Francisco still celebrate Brownie Mary Day. But her true memorial isn't a date on a calendar.
It is found in every oncology ward where a patient finds relief. It is found in every dispensary door that opens without fear.
It is found in the simple, quiet courage of anyone who sees suffering and refuses to look away.
Mary taught us that you don't need a law degree to change the world. You don't need millions of dollars. You don't need political office.
Sometimes, all you need is a mixing bowl, an oven, and enough love to tell the world to get out of your way.
Sources: New York Times Obituary (1999), "Brownie Mary" Rathbun. San Francisco Chronicle Archives (1992, 1996). History.com, "The History of Medical Marijuana." Weird Everything, FB december 12, 2025
yesterday i tried some natural dyeing at the museum i volunteer/work at. we did both dye baths and bundle dyeing.
the dye baths were wild sage and madder root and then we got to see what effects iron, alkaline and acid do on the colours. i really like the effect iron had on madder on the cotton but i need to have a play to see if linen is similar. the materials we tried were wool, cotton and silk.
the bundle dyeing was on silk and i sprinkled dogwood, cochineal and red onion skins onto mine
after doing the indigo dyeing back in june i have been slowly gathering the equipment and materials to do dyeing by myself. i am so nervous though, i need to be brave and just go for it i think.
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