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 BACK TO NATURE  Natural Paints Workshop What a lovely way to spend a warm summer’s evening!  I was invited by Asia, of Back to Nature, to speak to a women’s group at their Vallis Veg site, situated on a hillside in gently rolling countryside, near Frome in Somerset.  As I stepped out of the car the immersive effect of the surrounding trees and grasses was immediately welcoming. I'd been asked to talk about the natural colours that can be extracted from plants and made into paints; something that I do regularly on my Elka Textiles workshops.  The group was made...

  Over the years that our natural dyeing and natural inks and paints workshops in Mere have been running, some people have come a long way to attend, so for those that want to make a weekend of it, we thought it would be good to tell you a bit about our small town and some of the best things to see and do in the area. Mere is situated just off the A303, in the beautiful Blackmore Vale, where the borders of Wiltshire, Dorset and Somerset meet. The rich history of this Wiltshire town dates back to prehistoric times,...

Your chance to be part of a local green initiative, supporting the wellbeing and education of our children through outdoor learning.  What are our plans? At Kings Somborne Primary School in Hampshire we are in the process of transforming the largely unused outdoor garden area into a multifunctional space for outdoor learning. We aim to create a legacy for our future children by designing a space that will support children’s development now and in years to come. Alongside the development of the physical space, we will be building an online learning hub which will grow with the garden, providing a...

One of the beauties of off-loom weaving is its simplicity. You can, of course, choose to make it more complex, but there is much satisfaction to be had from keeping it simple and immersing yourself in the rhythm and repetition of weaving in its most basic form.

Yesterday I held my first natural dyeing workshop in its new home -mine! After several years of packing up the back of the car with all the boxes required to get the equipment to every new workshop venue – that’s pots and pans, sieves and tongs, yarns and fabrics, dyes and mordants, buckets and cloths, hobs and handouts and a lot else besides – I wondered if perhaps it would be better to set up a workshop space at home. Running natural dyeing workshops at Elka Textiles’ studio, just outside Winchester, was a joy; light and airy, plenty of space,...