Jenny Balfour Paul, writer, artist/dyer, traveller, curator and international lecturer, is author of ‘Indigo in the Arab World’ (Routledge), ‘Indigo: Egyptian Mummies to Blue Jeans’ (British Museum Press) and ‘Deeper than Indigo: tracing Thomas Machell, forgotten explorer’ (Medina Publications) as well as many other publications. 

She was consultant curator for the Whitworth Art gallery’s 2007 UK touring exhibition ‘Indigo, a Blue to Dye For’ and consultant for two documentary films on Indigo. 

Jenny is an Honorary Research Fellow at Exeter University; Fellow and past Trustee of the Royal Geographical Society; Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society and New York’s Explorers Club; immediate past President of the UK’s Association of Guilds of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers and a partner in ‘Silk Road Connect’, an educational initiative launched by cellist Yo Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project in New...

Our *NEW* 2019 online training dates are:-

Module 1: Colour - Mon 4th Feb - Sat 2nd Mar 2019 

Module 2: Print - Mon 3rd - Sat 29th June 2019 

Module 3: Pattern - Mon 7th Oct - Sat 2nd Nov 2019

Thanks to everyone who has been enquiring by email and social media about next year's online workshop dates and apologies for keeping everyone waiting! I'm happy to announce that registration has just opened with a FLASH SALE.

If you're one of the first lucky 50 students to book all three modules using the code: NFDFLASH150 you'll pay just £449 rather than the usual price for all three of £599 until midnight on 11th November 2018. That's a saving of £150 for the first to sign up! This offer is likely to get snapped up very quickly so please take advantage of it as soon as you can.

After 11:11:18 you can still get an Early Bird Discount until midnight on 31:12:18 by using code: NFD123EB

Paying instalments...

If you need to split the cost, you can also pay in...

I spend a lot of my time chatting to students located all over the world as I support them through their online trainings, so it was lovely to be contacted by someone a lot close to home with an invite to meet in person. Alex Lowman is the course leader on the Foundation Diploma in Art and Design at Runshaw Adult College in Chorley, Lancashire. She took part in last year's inaugural run of Natural Fabric Dyeing: Colour, Print and Pattern and has since inspired a new generation of creatives to try plant dyes. Alex recently invited me to attend the private view of her students' graduation work and I was thrilled to accept.

It was so lovely to meet her in person last week, along with her students whom she has so obviously inspired to produce brilliant work.

Alex's feedback about the training she took was really complimentary so it's especially rewarding for me to realise that her love of the work she did with me has now passed on to these young designers. Take...

I’ve yet to write about the fact that I opened a new studio this summer (I will soon!) but am skipping ahead to share some new work using flowers harvested from the studio dye garden. Back in May I planted Dyer’s Coreopsis, Dyer’s Camomile, Sumac, Hollyhocks, Woad, Madder, Weld, Lady’s Bedstraw, Angelica and Meadowsweet and 3 months later I got to use the first crop of flowers in an ecoprinting project.

I’d dyed some silk scarves using shibori resist patterns and exhaust baths from my last Eco-Spectrum workshopand whilst they were lovely, like any pieces of textiles that sit still for too long, I felt compelled to mess with them some more! I went for a forage around my favourite part of the Wirral, Thurstaston and gathered some branches of Copper Beech, some magical Mugwort (which seems to be my totem plant lately) and some rich brown Dock seeds.

I’m not going to share my entire process because I make my living as a textile teacher and whilst...

Sat 25th June 2016 10am – 4pm

Jenny Dean is one of the country’s foremost natural dyers and has been researching and using natural dyes for about forty years.

She has written widely on the subject and her books include “The Craft of Natural Dyeing”, “Wild Colour”, “Colours from Nature” & “A Heritage of Colour”.

She was featured in a Radio 4 programme with Kaffe Fasset and her work has been the focus of many magazine articles.

Jenny has been involved in natural dyeing projects in Zambia and Uganda and has led workshops in Spain as well as at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, Cambridge University Botanic Garden, Fishbourne Roman Palace and for the Royal Horticultural Society.

She has also tutored residential courses for the Guild of Weavers, Spinners & Dyers and for the Embroiderers’ Guild. Her dyed yarns are in collections at the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and at the Royal Centre for Cultural Heritage in Brussels.

Further...