Floral Impressions

…from the dye garden.

I am often asked if my plant dye art and experimentation includes ecoprinting, i.e. making flower prints on fabric. Until 2023 the answer has been no, not yet. It’s sort of like the questions I have been asked since I started weaving: Do you spin your own yarn? Do you dye your own fiber? Do you (insert any number of deepening of experience of working with fiber arts)? While the answer was always, no, not yet, I have done some beginning work learning spinning (of wool), and started dyeing with foraged plants in 2017. The dyeing has now supplanted weaving as my main fiber art. The point is that at some moment, techniques and curiosities seep in and start to become part of the practice.

So, I first tried the popular craft of ecoprinting with a test shirt I bought for use as a farm work shirt, and used fresh coreopsis blooms to make a print on the fabric. The pigment-rich coreopsis blooms make a good impression on these cotton and cotton/linen blend shirts, and I have continued to decorate a range of colors and some different styles.

[A note that I did not dye the shirts, they come to me pre-dyed.]

I call it the “FLORAL IMPRESSIONS from the dye garden” line, and the shirts are for sale. I have a small selection of sizes and colors in stock.  Please contact me if you are interested in what I have available.

The tags for my FLORAL IMPRESSIONS shirts are made from the cardboard slipped into the pockets when hammering the coreopsis blooms onto the fabric.