Sowing Crafts
May - October 2021
Walthamstow
Sowing Crafts
Sowing crafts will be London’s only Indigo garden, dedicated to promoting slow and sustainable textile dyeing. Working with local communities this space will act as an educational garden and workshop for learning how to grow and extract indigo pigment, promoting mental wellbeing through slow craft and connecting to nature.
Sowing communities will act as a safe haven during lockdown and beyond to offer safe physically distanced workshops for isolated people and other groups in the local community. Connecting people with the natural environment through growing dye plants and learning to dye with nature SC will nurture people’s relationship with the land and promote mental wellbeing through hands-on making activities.
Participants of our workshops will gain a wealth of knowledge about sustainable and eco-friendly textile practices as well as growing and extracting Indigo dye plants. They will be introduced to circular design processes and experience zero-waste textile dyeing.
Event categories:
How to get there
Venue: Walthamstow, E17
By train: Walthamstow Central and Blackhorse Road (Victoria Line and London Overground)
By bus: 20, 34, 48, 69, 97, 212, 215, 230, 257, 275, 357, 675, W12, W15, W19, N26, N38, N73
Who's Involved
Liza Mackenzie, co-creator
Textile designer and researcher who create and celebrate beautifully made and crafted Textiles. Liza studied Indigo and natural dye techniques in Japan between 2009 and 2013, where she learned about environmentally friendly processes that are beneficial to people and the planet.
Liza has run workshops in London working with The Princes Trust, Somerset House, Blackhorse Lane Atelier, and Next retailer. Each workshop is custom-made to suit the audiences’ needs from thinking about sustainability to zero-waste.
Luisa Uribe, co-creator
A textile artist and designer working with Indigo dye since 2013 having studied traditional techniques in Japan, India and from master dyers from West Africa and other parts of the world. She has been growing Indigo plants for over two years, running in-depth indigo dyeing workshops in Europe and specialising in unveiling the limitless possibilities of Indigo dye and the extraction of pigment from the plant. She is now focussing on creating textile art and watercolour paints from her home-grown indigo pigment.
