Fiber College of Maine Touchstone Workshop: September 3-7, 2025

Come forage for seaweed, our main character, within the stunning intertidal zone of mid-coast Maine. Let’s collect the berries, leaves, branches, flowers, and barks of the forests and gardens surrounding our creative retreat. With these plant collaborators, and each other, we will explore fabric preparation and pattern making techniques to develop our own unique visual language on cloth - a record of a conversation with time and place, the earth and the ocean. 

This class takes us into the surrounding landscapes for foraging time and brings us back to the studio to learn about mordanting methods for natural dye applications on fiber. We will eco-printing various species of our foraged seaweeds, and other plants and minerals an intrepid printer may want to explore. Then we will spend time experimenting with tie resist and block resist methods, with dye baths from our collected and processed plants. We will learn how to make our own inks to further add depth and style to our pieces, creating layered and narrative-rich panels that can be transformed into apparel or a decoration for the home.