The Harmonious Palette: Beautiful Gradations with Natural Dyes

If you love color, join us for 5 days of intensive color exploration and discovery using natural dyes and materials from the Sanborn Mills dye garden. We will dye cellulose fabrics in large enough sample sizes for your stash and inspiration. Our workshop teaches you how to work with tannins and natural dyes to create unique and harmonious color gradations that are perfect for quilters, stitchers and sewists. We will dye cellulose fabrics in large enough sample sizes for your stash and inspiration. Tannins have become one of the secret weapons in our dye studio as they improve light and wash fastness as well as impart an unusual base shade to the dyes. The colors that develop are intriguing and unusual. We will learn how to work with different tannin base shades. We will also add color modifiers and indigo to create stunning gradations for stitching, quilting, appliqué, tabletop and other uses. Participants will work in small teams to create generously sized samples suitable for projects.  Each team should expect to complete 2-3 palettes, and all participants will receive samples, recipes and documentation for future reference and inspiration.

Skills and Techniques:

• Discussion about tannins, mordanting, foraging
• Color gradation ideas and unusual color pairings
• The alchemy of color and color surprises
• Creating a palette from natural dye extracts and SMF dye garden bounty
• How to overdye using color modifiers
• How to over dye using indigo
• How to under dye using indigo

Materials Fee: $140 paid directly to the instructor. Fee covers 3 yards of fabric per student along with precutting and scouring of all the fabric prior to the workshop.

Special Tools or Equipment to bring: Apron or clothes that can get messy, comfortable closed toe shoes, water bottle, Sharpie, pen, notebook, 2 rolls of double stick tape, a rotary cutter and small mat and quilting ruler.

Workshop and Cancellation Policies

Please be sure to read our 2026 policies before you register for a workshop: https://www.sanbornmills.org/workshop-policies/