Pickings from Sanborn Mills Farm

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Farm Pickings

News and Updates from Sanborn Mills Farm

— March 4, 2022 —

Sara Goodman Talks About Natural Dyes

and the Farm’s Fiber Arts Program

In a new interview, the Farm’s manager of our new Dye Studio, Sara Goodman, talks about how her love of color and natural dyes has taken her all over the world to meet with textile artists and dye-makers and how these experiences will help frame our textile workshops. Sara,

who grew up in the Hudson River Valley and now lives in Center Harbor, N.H., on Squam Lake, heads a faculty at the Farm that includes several nationally known textile artists and natural-dye makers. Several of our textile workshops will include dyes and dye-making from plants, such as indigo, grown right here at the Farm.

To read the full conversation with Sara, click here.

Dye Studio Update

The new Natural Dye Studio at Sanborn Mills Farm is near the finishing-touches stage and will be ready for workshops and students this coming May. The studio, located downstairs in the Grange building, adds a significant feature to the Farm’s infrastructure and programming: We are now one of the very few facilities in the world with a fully equipped studio for making natural dyes and creating textiles and with a large natural dye garden to supply plants for dye-making.

To learn more about our Fiber Arts program, click here. Our 2022 catalog of fiber workshops can be found here.

The new Dye Studio at Sanborn Mills Farm occupies the lower tier of the restored Grange. There’s plenty of room to work both inside and outside.

Meet Thomas and Jeremiah — Our New Mules!

Don’t call them donkeys, and certainly not asses! Mules are the offspring of a mating most often by a male donkey and a female horse and make excellent draft animals on farms. Our new pair, Thomas and Jeremiah, will join our oxen pairs and draft horses to work in our fields and forests. Next time you visit Sanborn Mills Farm, be sure to say hello to these handsome fellows.

That’s Thomas on the right and Jeremiah on the left, with teamster Lars Prillaman in the middle fitting the boys with harnesses.

Upcoming Workshops:

April to mid-May

Here are the workshops that will open the season at Sanborn Mills Farm, beginning in April. Click on the workshop title to learn more and to register.

Blacksmithing Basics

April 22-24, April 29-May 1

(These workshops are already full)

Draft Animal: Oxen Basics

April 29-May 1

Natural Dye Basics: Natural Indigo Vats with Extract

May 5-7

Blacksmithing: Make a Hand Axe

May 6-8

(This workshop is full)

Natural Dye Basics: Mordant Dyes on Cloth

May 12-14