Project 03
Textiles Pigmento Natural
Mantas y cojines teñidos con corteza de acacia y raíz de rubia
The brief
A gallery in Woodstock needed a textile collection that felt rooted in the workshop rather than in a dye house. No synthetic pigments, no uniform color across the run. The request was specific: blankets and cushions that carry the trace of each dye bath, with enough tonal range to sit together in a retail display without looking like a matched set.
How we worked
We started with raw wool and cotton, scoured but undyed. Dye baths were built from acacia bark, madder root, and onion skin, each in separate vats at the back of the studio. Immersion times ran between forty minutes and two hours depending on the fiber and the depth we wanted. Every batch got a color card: fiber weight, bath ratio, temperature, and a swatch stapled to the sheet. Those cards live in a binder we still pull out when a repeat order comes in.
On the loom
The dyed yarns went onto a floor loom at a width of 1400 mm. We kept the sett loose enough to show the irregularity of the hand-dyed lots, which means no two blankets share the exact same stripe sequence. After weaving, each piece got a neutral wash to set the pigment and soften the hand. The palette that came out runs from a warm ochre through to a muted olive green, with some batches landing closer to a dusty rose depending on the madder root.
What we delivered
Fourteen blankets and twenty-two cushion covers for the first run. Each piece ships with a card listing fiber content, dye sources, and finished dimensions in millimeters. The color binder stays with us, so if a shop wants to reorder a specific tone from an earlier batch, we can usually get close. Not identical, but close.