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In December 2020 I registered for an online course in the hope of improving my ecoprints. The course was Foundation of ecoprinting and was run by Caroline Nixon. The course started in early January. I did not get very far with the course because I broke my elbow. That is what you get for cycling when it’s icy. I was then unable to wring out fabric or wrap bundles. Caroline kindly let me join the April course instead.

Luckily my elbow is fully recovered and I could participate in the April course. Good timing as well as many of the plants in my garden were coming into leaf.

Here is one of my first ecoprints. The fabric is a hemp silk blend and has a slight texture and lovely drape. Certainly, this is not the best ecoprint in the world but it tells me loads. I have printed with raspberry, aquilegia, alchemilla, heuchera, geranium, geum, hydrangea, ajuga, honesty, and Russian vine plus a feathery weed from my garden. Straight away I can say, I won’t be using honesty or Russian vine or ajuga again as the prints are almost none existent. Geranium and alchemilla, geum and raspberry print really well. Hydrangea gives an interesting colour but very blurry. Aquilegia gives a lovely orange print.

Caroline gave lots of tips on bundling well and one option she suggested was using teeshirt yarn to tie the bundles. I had previously used string or bandages. Well, just a few weeks ago a recycled some old tights into bundle ties. I was pleased with my recycling but I was warned that there was a risk that the tights would transfer colour to my bundle. No, it won’t I foolishly thought. How wrong I was.

So following this disaster I treated myself to a very large ball of white teeshirt yarn. One of the downsides of internet shopping is that this is rather bigger than I needed and will last me years. I will use my recycled material in the garden as plant ties. I don’t think it can do any harm there.

So I went on and with the same hemp silk fabric, I tested some leaves using different iron concentrations in the fabric. Again this was interesting and t showed me how different leaves required different concentrations to give good ecoprints.

This course has taught me the following things that have improved my ecoprints

How to bundle better

How to control the wetness of my fabric

The importance of testing leaves

How changing iron concentration effects different leaves

The important of keeping good notes

I am still testing and trying very hard to keep accurate records. But there is no doubt this course has improved my ecoprints and I am looking forward very much to taking another course with Caroline starting in May called Ecoprint with natural dyes- online workshop