Dyeing and Painting with Henna on Wool

with Gil De Vloo

Since the Henna mini workshop was so popular during the Textile Weekend last October we now offer a full day workshop.

For your information: the year 2009 is the year of the natural fibres and of course of natural dyeing. More and more people are interested in using natural dyes. Henna is primarily used to treat your hair. In India, Northern Africa and the Middle East one uses hennapaste to colour and paint the skin (hand and feet) But henna is also a dye for wool, leather and parchment.

The workshop is divided in 2 parts.
Part 1 :
Woollen fabrics are dyed with henna. The woollen cloth is given a mordant treatment first, in order to enable the dye stuff to penetrate and affix to the fibres. Various mordants will be discussed and tried out, in order to achieve beautiful shades of deep yellow, yellow brown and green.

Part 2 :
Woollen fabrics are painted with henna.
The preparation of the paste is discussed. Henna powder is diluted with water, black tea and lemon resulting in a sticky paste which can be applied to fabric by a syringe, brush or stencil.

After a short explanation of the history and symbolics the basic recipes for part 1 and part 2 are explained, after which the participants can start working.

Inschrijven niet mogelijk

list of materials: will be provided upon request