As part of my HND qualification I  got to pick my own theme. With this I was inspired by native flowers I see on walks around the UK.  I love the variety of colours and shapes all the different flowers feature. I always take loads of photos of flowers for inspiration so it was the perfect time to use this imagery as inspiration for this new project.

​

With the theme being very natural I wanted to try out some natural dying for the first time to keep in with the natural aesthetic. I was inspired by the book 'The Wild Dyer' by Abigail Booth, which helped me on my natural dying process!

When sourcing materials to dye, I used old cotton bedsheets to dye. Its sustainable to use old material and its more cost effective than buying new fabric!

 

The natural dyes I sampled include:  tea, Beetroot, Blueberry, Blackberry, Red Cabbage, Red Onion skin and Yellow Onion skin.

I had never done natural dying before so it was quite the experience! I really loved how natural all the ingredients were instead of using the typical artificial dyes. I tried lots of different dye ingredients some worked better than others and they all had unexpected results eg you would think red cabbage would turn red? No it turned a gorgeous purple which was a nice surprise! I completely took over the kitchen using the hob to boil up my dye so I looked like I was apart of a crazy soup kitchen with weird and wonderful soups!

Using natural dyed fabric as a base, I experimented with different embroidery techniques to represent native flowers. I made lots of samples to see what techniques worked the best and with the best ones I made these into my final samples. The successful techniques include fabric manipulation, hand and machine embroidery and beading.

These 10 pieces were framed in an embroidery hoops which I waxed with a wood stain to give a more natural look!

The collection works well as a set, as well as individual pieces. I loved experimenting with showcasing different flowers using stitch to convey their lines eg for the bluebell I used a turkey stitch which I didn’t cut, these loops gave the flower some movement and emulated the shape and 3D element of a real bluebell!