Exploring Natural Dyes and Textile Art with Jess Chan

In this episode of the Sewing Social podcast, Gemma Daly sits down with textile designer and natural dye expert Jess Chan for a vibrant conversation full of creativity and inspiration. 

Jess opens up about her artistic journey, from the sparks that first ignited her passion to the path that led her to teaching and working with naturally dyed textiles. 

She dives into the beauty and complexity of natural dyes, busts some common myths, and explains how she thoughtfully sources her materials. 

Jess also shares stories from her eye-opening artist residency in Mexico, how she juggles life as a maker and entrepreneur, and offers thoughtful advice for anyone curious about stepping into the world of natural dyeing.

Key Takeaways: 

• Jess Chan is the founder and designer of Jess Chan Textiles, specialising in naturally dyed textiles.
• Her creative journey began with a love for drawing and silkscreen printing.
• Jess studied printed textiles and surface pattern design at Leeds College of Art and natural dyes at Chelsea College of Art.
• She enjoys the methodical nature of dyeing and the element of surprise it brings.
• Natural dyes can produce a wide range of colours, including vibrant pinks and earthy tones.
• Jess forages for local plants like Buddleia, nettles and walnuts for her dyeing process.
• Common misconceptions about natural dyes include the belief that they are only "muddy" colours and not colourfast.
• Silk and wool are her preferred fabrics for dyeing due to their beautiful results.
• Jess teaches silkscreen printing and natural dyeing at Loughborough University.
• Her artist residency in Mexico provided her with in-depth training in traditional dyeing methods.

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Guest details: 

Website: www.jesschantextiles.com

Instagram: @jesschantextiles

In person events coming up: 

• Paperdolls Handmade (Digbeth, Birmingham) 29th-30th November
• Craft Fair Contemporary (Nottingham) 5th-7th December
• Craft Fox Market (Kings Cross, London) 13th December
• Winterfolk Festive Market (Nottingham) 14th December

Chapters: 

00:00 Introduction to Jess Chan and Her Journey

03:41 Exploring Natural Dyes and Their Unique Qualities

08:46 Inspiration and Seasonal Influences in Design

14:17 Common Misconceptions About Natural Dyes

18:49 Teaching and Sharing Knowledge in Textiles

22:01 Artist Residency in Mexico: A Transformative Experience

27:46 A Week in the Life of Jess Chan

30:09 Product Offerings and Future Aspirations

33:58 Getting Started with Natural Dyeing

38:01 Fun This or That Game

Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:10.082)

Jess, welcome to the Sewing Social Podcast. It's so nice to have you on today. I was wondering if you could introduce yourself to the listeners.

Hello, hello.

Speaker 1 (00:20.174)

My name is Jess or Jessica Chan. I am the founder slash designer maker of Jess Chan Textiles. I specialise in naturally dyed textiles for fashion and home wear.

So could you tell us a little bit about your background and how it led you to where you are today?

So I think I was always just a little bit creative really. I loved drawing when I was a kid and then when I did my foundation, I didn't really know what I wanted to go into. I didn't know that printed textiles was like a thing. So when I did foundation, I loved drawing, I loved suction printing. That's where I got my first taste of it, like proper taste of it. I studied at Leeds College of Art. I did printed textiles and surface pattern design.

I graduated there in about 2010, just very long time ago. And then I did my MA at Chelsea College of Art in London. And that's where I sort of specialised in natural dyes. I used base synthetic and natural dyes throughout my masters. But yeah, I think just having the education in textiles is sort of how I've progressed in my working life and also like my design and creativity life.

Everything sort of feeds into that teaching practice because I work at a university. So yeah, I think from that, that's how I then started my business. But was always like, I think from a kid, I just always used to love painting. It's that sort of child that I just draw on the wallpaper, which wasn't great, you know, for my parents. I think just from wanting to have colour all around me all the time, that's where my love of dyeing came from.

Speaker 1 (02:08.314)

I specifically dyeing. When I left Chelsea, I started silk-screen printing for a textile designer and I love silk-stream printing. I love anything to do with printing. I think I like the methodical sort of recipes that you get with dyeing. And also with natural dyeing, you get the hit and misses. So I like the element of surprise in a way, which is good and also bad.

that's really lovely. Can you share a little bit about your favourite natural dyes and what makes them so special?

Yeah, so I think my favourite one, which I always just always use is logwood. So logwood gives you a purple. It can also give you a black. I just love working with barks in particular, but most of them come from like South America, South East Asia. It's because they give you the brightest colours, but also they're really colourfast as well. So used with a particular mordant.

they come out really, really strong and they become quite vibrant, which is like really integral as part of my products. I want that sort of big, bright boldness when you're wearing one of my scarves or how the light sort of shines through with particular dyes when I've built it on a lampshade. I think those sort of really vibrant dyes work really well. But I also love a green that's made from red onion skins.

And when it's used with alum, aluminium, so alum is called aluminium potassium sulphate. It's a mordant, but so when it's used with red onion, it gives this really earthy green. And I love that green. I don't often wear it myself. just like, I love staring at this color because it's just magical. That something red can give you like a green colour. And I think that's, that's the beauty with natural dyes is that you just don't actually know what colour you're going to get.

Speaker 1 (04:05.826)

So yeah, hopefully that answers it.

That's really cool and like you say, what a surprising thing to get a really deep green from a red onion skin. It doesn't make any sense. Where do you normally draw your inspiration from for your designs and your dye palettes?

Quite often I will just think about the seasons. So unfortunately with natural dyes, you are limited to a certain colour palette. And I only use really aluminium, potassium, sulphate. I don't really use any other metals for mordants. I occasionally use iron and then natural tannins to sort soak up that colour. So I am restricted to colour-wise, but what happens is that I usually...

This is also really bad. just, I kind of use what I have. There'll be periods where I don't use any browns. I just use lots of pinks then I'll think about if it's winter. So if I'm doing like a summer market or like a winter market, the colours will be quite muted. Quite often I go through periods of working with indigo. So indigo blue. I haven't done any indigo dyeing for a very long time. So I've gone through that stint of using it.

consistently and then not use it at all. I think it's just whatever I think I want that product to have. want that sort of what of warmness do I want that scarf to have. So what I've used recently, I've just made some scarves. They're quite purpley and reddish, which is a colour that I use anyway, but I've used them predominantly.

Speaker 1 (05:46.446)

within this range. And I think it's just because I like, well, I like purple because of log wood. And then I have quite a lot of Brazil wood left over from a project. And I just thought, well, actually that can go really nice and dark. Do I want it to go also really vibrant by mixing it up with a bit of something else? So yeah, I think it's just, I don't really have a focus, but what I do sort of lean onto as a inspiration is like the galaxy.

because I just like the way like a galaxy looks sort of a bit sparse and also clumps of just like cool colours. And then like there was a collection that I did a couple of years ago and I just looked at like Monet paintings. So you saw greens and lot of like dusty pinks as well. I think it's just whatever it takes my fantasy. wish I just had.

I wish I actually had a thinking, but I just go with the flow, which is really also really bad as a designer maker. think lots of people are like this. I'm not as controlled as I want to be. yeah.

think that's probably where your creativity flows though, isn't it? If it was fully controlled all the time, it'd be quite a rigid process. Yeah. Yeah. You touched on it a bit there, but I was going to ask you about how just sort of seasonal changes and do you collect local plants or are there things that you buy in and how does that influence your dyeing process?

If I have time, would go forage. So buddleias, like the purple flowers, usually it's, I mean, it grows like wildfires, like a weed really. That's come in quite late this year. So at the beginning of the year, well, at the beginning of summer, I was sort of looking out for it and I couldn't really see much. I've moved now. So I used to live in London where I could find as much buddleia as I really

Speaker 1 (07:47.794)

really needed. But because I've moved to Nottingham, I don't actually go out that much, which sounds really bad. It sounds like I don't have a life. I just don't go out to those places where I think it might grow. So usually I collect buddelier, obviously, and that's seasonal. Sometimes I go foraging for nettles, but I don't do that often because I quite often don't want to hurt myself. Walnuts.

They're currently in season, so I've got a colleague that's actually collecting some for me, so that's really good. When I was in London, what happened is I used to work with a restaurant. I would actually take some of their onion skins and work with those. So I did a whole collection of just like yellow and rusty, sort of rusty yellow and oranges. That was quite nice. And then I just haven't had time to grow anything this year. That's what I would usually do is I would grow my own.

natural dyes. Because I've moved from London to Nottingham where I'm currently like with my family, I just haven't had the space to actually grow my own natural dye plants. So I would do indigo usually. I've just had to get rid of my madder because I was moving. I was like so sad about it. But I grow my own madder. I usually have Choreopsis, Hollyhocks. So a lot of the florals I do. But what's good is that my mum grows a lot of flowers.

So she's got a lot of rose bushes. And the beauty of that is when it falls, I can just collect it. So I've collected those and then just dried them. And then I use a lot of forage flowers.

That's really cool. And from like a personal sort of nosy parker, you know, we do try and grow a lot of veg and flowers at home. Is it the petals or is it like the buds or what is it that will provide that dye colour?

Speaker 1 (09:41.23)

Sometimes it can be the leaves and then sometimes it can be the actual petals themselves. A lot of the petals I collect from my mum's garden, those petals. This time of year it's sunflowers. I tend to use those because they can give me a really nice mark. So once they're dried and then I sprinkle them, they leave sort of speckling marks all over the fabric. And it's the same with the buddleia actually.

If you use the whole plant, you can sort of get an imprint of where the plant was, like the flowers. There's obviously some leaves, like eucalyptus, you use the leaves for those and then some stems you can actually use by dipping into iron and then you can get sort of the actual plant look and a mark on your fabric. So you can use pretty much most things. I mean, a lot of things might not give you anything, but surprisingly enough, if you treat them in a certain way, so like white roses, if you

dye with white roses. So if I do a technique of bundle dyeing, so I did a commission where I sprinkled them onto some silk and you wouldn't think that white roses would give you anything. So I sort of knew this, but I dipped into some iron afterwards and then all of a sudden wherever I sprinkled, it came up with these gray marks, which was beautiful. I used it for a friend who got married. It was like a keepsake for the...

wedding day and it was like this grey kimono and it was just you can get a mark out of pretty much anything it's just the way that you treat it is is how you're to then create it yeah

Yeah, and just while we're on the subject of those sort of individual plants, we have a walnut tree that grows nearby and I know my husband will really want me to ask you this, but which part of the walnut is it that you use? Is it the casing or is it the actual nut inside?

Speaker 1 (11:34.402)

So at this time of year, they're probably quite soft, still. So I would just use the whole thing. A few years ago, when I worked in London, colleague had just bought a bucket in and they were like sort of starting to go a bit murky. They basically put it in a bucket, filled it with water because they thought that was the best way. Actually, it was the best way because the sun was like naturally extracting as it was just sitting in the water.

If you're dyeing something anyway, you're going to extract it for longer, especially if it's a walnut, because you want all of the colour to sort of seep out. So yeah, use the whole thing. If you want to, you could dry it and then sort of bash it and then use it that way. But I think that's the whole thing will just work. Yeah.

That's really interesting, thank you. What do you think are some common misconceptions about natural dying if there are any?

I think a lot of people just think they're a bit boring, if I'm honest. People just think, they're a bit brown. And it's not the case. It's like, you can get pinks. You can get like a bright hot pink from a natural dye. You can get a lovely yellow. You can get all sorts of colours. They might just not be as bright as a synthetic dye, but they're really strong. Some of them are really high pigmentation.

I think that's just a thing. They just think natural. think like green and brown and murky, which is just like, no, I don't think that's the case. But also I think a lot of people just think they're not colourfast and that's one thing that I've always had. So working at a university, are always asking that. They're always saying, how do I fix this? And they say that about synthetic dyes as well.

Speaker 1 (13:24.352)

is all about the treatment, is all about knowing what actually works with that particular bark or particular plant. And also the fibre. So depending on the fibre that you have, some mordants or like fixatives work better. So it's just having that background knowledge of understanding, well, I need to use alum for silks and I shouldn't use alum for wool because it can make it bit sticky or can make it brittle.

It's just stuff like that. I think it's definitely picking up. It's positive connotations of being sustainable and also quite eco. I think that's the two things is that it's not colourfast and that they're not bright enough.

Are there any particular fabrics that you do love to work with for your products that you sell or ones that you definitely avoid?

I always use silk. I love silk. I've had a love for silk for years and that's because it's just one of those fabric that dyes beautifully. Even with a synthetic dye, think, you know, it dyes really quickly. It doesn't take up a lot of dye and I think that's the same with working with natural dyes is that if I'm using dye extracts, it will actually dye really quickly and I just love the feel of it because it's got that luxury.

It's got that sort of slipperiness, like a satin, and it just works really well. The colours are really bright as well, so if the fabric's slightly shiny, they look so bright and vibrant on a silk. But I also love working with wool. I don't often make products. I only do a range of wool scarves, a very small range of wool scarves per year. But working with the lambswool, it picks up very differently.

Speaker 1 (15:18.774)

and you have to work with it very, very delicately just because you don't want to stretch it or so you don't want to soak it too long because also that might make it slightly brittle and you don't want to disrupt the fiber itself but silk and wool are the best ones. I try not to go for like viscose fibres. I do a range of like bamboo scarves which is 100 % viscose and they

They do work. They're really nice and the weight of this is quite heavy. So it sort of feels like a hug when you're wearing it. And that's what I tend to use for my kimonos because I want that sort of heavy weight, but not too heavy, something that just sort of flows. But I tend not to do them as much just because it does require a lot of treatment. I feel like I have to dye things for a lot longer. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't use polyester.

It sounds very skilled what you're doing and very, like you say, sometimes very labour intensive as well. Yeah. You mentioned there that you teach at the university. What is it that you teach? Is it related to natural dying?

So I used to work at Wimbledon College of Art. I was there for about, say about 13 years. I left there this January actually, which was quite sad, but I started my new life in Nottingham. I've now got a job at Loughborough. So I'm doing the same job that I did at Wimbledon, but I'm working now more with textile students, whereas before I was working with costume students and also like theatre students.

I teach the same thing, so I teach silkscreen printing and dyeing. There's a lot of natural dyes involved. There's bit of biotextiles involved as well. And I also split my time with a fine art print workshop. So I currently teach silkscreen printing and lithography as well. So yeah, I like working with students.

Speaker 2 (17:16.629)

And what does your costume work or what did it entail?

So when I worked at the university, I would help students sort of create their designs. So the pathway was split between costume design and costume interpretation. So the costume interpretation students were more into making historical dress and working from like an illustration if they chose an independent project. And then the costume design students, they would still make, but they would design their own costume based on.

story or their mood board. And it was really good working with both of them because with the costume interpretation students, I definitely felt like there was more history and more historical ways of actually approaching dyeing and also printing. So they kept me on my toes quite a lot because I would actually think, this is quite interesting. Maybe I should do some research on how this was done in the 1800s. This is quite nice to actually look back at.

how they dye things. Whereas costume design students, it would be more thinking on your feet. Actually, how do I apply this? Do they want like, they want this structure? How do we like apply color onto the structure? Do we need to like create a sort of cage for it? So it was really nice working with them and they were such lovely students, costume students, really lovely students because they're sort of dedicated to costume. Costume's just a world that I never really thought I'd get into.

But when I started freelance for a die house, I just thought, actually, this is just insane. The amount of dying that needs to be done for like West End Theatre. I just didn't really think about it. it's just the pace is just a lot faster. And it's very, very methodical and you have to do it fast. That's the thing.

Speaker 2 (19:11.438)

Yeah, no pressure. it sounds really interesting. And like you say, not a lot of us will have thought about those things. You just see the finished product, don't you? Yeah. So I saw that you completed like an artist residency in Mexico. How did this come about and can you tell us a bit about it? Yeah.

Yeah, of course. So when I was working at Wimbledon, I applied for funding to do a residency, which was in Oaxaca, Mexico. It was with a company called Archytopia and they do a variety of like residencies. They do fine art ones where you can do historical printmaking. They had this weaving one as well, which explored South American, particularly Mexican, abstract looms.

so more historical within that area. And I did a natural dye one. So I applied for it because I was currently studying, well, at that time, was about 2018, I was studying my PG cert. And then because of the influx that we had of natural dye usage, I was sort of basing everything on that. So I applied for funding, I got it. And then I just thought, yeah, this is just once in a lifetime, I've just got to do it. So I got it.

I went in April 2018. The residency was for three weeks and I worked with this master dyer. He had a cochineal farm. So cochineal are like, they give a red color. It's usually what you would use for like red food coloring. It's a very good textile dye as well. So he had a farm that grew these like little bugs on the cactus. And I would actually like go have a look at him like growing it. It was like so big.

full of cactus everywhere, but the residency itself, I would learn all of the traditional dyes that would be used just historically. So a lot of plants within Mexico and also South America. Never really had training. When I was doing my BA, I dabbled with natural dyes and I also then dabbled with natural dyes in my masters. I never actually had proper training. So when I worked with this master dyer, he taught me

Speaker 1 (21:27.246)

all of the ways to treat fabric, how to wash it, how to actually extract the dye. He went through lengths to just teach me every single step methodically and just, it was so intense. I had like a whole notebook at the end of it. I just thought, oh my God, there's like so much that you need to do with natural dyes. I just loved it. I dyed yarn as part of the residency. I don't know what I've actually done with it.

I use a bit of it, I use some of it. I'm just a bit of a hoarder. It's in a box somewhere, but I use it for my tags. We worked with Indigo. There's this plant, which is like a seed. And then we went foraging for them as well. And he had lots of stories about, you know, how Cochineal didn't work in this fountain that he was sort of, he worked on a project that was like pumping water and like Cochineal dye.

throughout this fountain and he found that as they were pumping it through this sort of fountain, the atmosphere was changing the colour and it was just really nice to actually hear someone who's like a master dyer to have an issue and actually work with it and actually understand what he needed to do in order to like control it. It was three weeks of intense learning but also I was in Mexico and I had the greatest time of my life.

I had the greatest food and the people were so friendly. And as part of the residency, we had to do these readings, were really, it was just, some of them were quite dark, actually. It was all about colonialism within Mexico and also South America. And also learning about how a lot of the dyes were then taken from Mexico to European countries, which is the case. It did happen.

Actually having that history behind them made it even more interesting. Yeah, I would advertise it. It's a really good thing to do and they have lots of other ones. They also do one in Peru as well, which I obviously didn't do, but I would love to do it again.

Speaker 2 (23:42.892)

Was it like a one-on-one situation or was there a group of you doing that?

For me, it was a one-on-one. The other, so I shared a house with two other students. They were doing the backstrap balloon. So they were weaving because their practice was in fashion and they wanted to sort of go into weaving. So that's what they learned. And then the one after me who came as I left, they were going to do fine art. So sometimes I think they...

If they can, they put you together, but I think I was just the one.

It sounds incredible. I'm very jealous. So by the looks of things, you have a lot of elements to your work. Obviously you said you work at the university and you sell some of your own products. What is like a week in the life of Jess Chan? What does that look like?

Right now, really chaotic. Because we're still moving, like all of my business stuff is actually still London. I have to ask my partner to bring stuff up every time. I think I've got everything now, apart from my sewing box, which he's strategically bringing for me every time he comes. yeah, a week life. So I work nine to five at my job at Loughborough University.

Speaker 1 (25:02.478)

And then at weekends, that's when I'll do my business stuff. So as you know, you might know, Christmas is upon us. The C word is upon us. And I have stupidly signed up for quite a lot of markets because that's just what I do. I think I just go into panic mode and I just think, I've got to apply for these things because I want people to see my stuff. And then I'm like, why? Why sign up for these things? So I've got lots of markets coming up. So I'm

working at weekends on my own business. So every week I will mordant some fabric and then I'll probably leave it in there because I am slightly lazy. I am a lazy dyer. I advertise this to everyone that I speak to. I am a very lazy dyer. I will actually just forget about things quite often because I do actually forget about things. And so I'll put some more, some fabric into mordant and I'll boil it and then I'll leave it there sitting there to fester for about four days.

And then I'll remember that I need to dye it. So then I'm like panically making, because I'm thinking, I haven't got a big timeline to do this, but I actually do. I've got three months. So I'm like panic mode, but then I don't need to be in panic mode. And then in the evenings when I'm not battling with my daughter, I'll then do some sewing. So I'm currently hand sewing some silk scarves right now. So that's what I'm doing in the evenings.

So I actually don't have much time if I'm honest. Yeah, I'm constantly trying to do something which doesn't work to my advantage.

Busy, busy. Yeah. So you've mentioned your kimonos and your silk scarves. Are there any other products that people could see, you know, at those markets, for example?

Speaker 1 (26:47.628)

Yeah, so I've got lampshades and I want to make more lampshades because they, just, I just love homeware and I love making for my, myself. And that's where sort of the lampshades stemmed from. I work with a maker. She's currently situated in Bristol. She makes leather lampshades, like hide, like cowhide ones and they are beautiful. She actually

purchased some fabric from me and I didn't know what she was using it for and she made some lampshades. So I was like, this is a really good idea. So now I work with her to make my lampshades. So I make quite big ones. So I do bespoke ones. I use a variety of fabric depending on the customer or client. I used to make cushions, but I am going to be honest, I'm not the greatest sewer. So when you asked if I would be on this podcast,

I was like, but I'm really not good at selling.

That does not matter.

I said to my bar and I was just like, I'm going to be on a sewing podcast. He was like, but you can't sew that well. And I'm like, I know. So actually the lampshade, the lampshade, didn't do anything. But the cushions, my colleague at Wimbledon, who's now an academic there, she used to make all my cushions and she was so, she was so neat and tidy. And I just, can't make to the same way. So I don't make cushions.

Speaker 1 (28:19.22)

I used to make patches. I've kind of steered away from smaller products because, not because I don't enjoy sewing, I think it's mainly because I actually don't have the time to do it because I also dye the fabric as well and that can take up to two weeks and then all my time is just hand finishing scarves. I love hand sewing. I'd rather hand sew something than machine sew something which is...

obviously laborious, but that's what I love doing. So scarves and I also make kimonos as well. So I don't make those, but my colleague at Wimbledon makes them because she's just the greatest on a sewing machine. And yeah, I do want to branch out into more like sort of installation type products. I'm just thinking about like sort of like light structures where the silk might.

give you sort of different shadows when lit up. So that's what I'm sort of designing in my head. And I want to expand into like wood. So I met a designer maker at Nottingham Contemporary in their market and he makes furniture and also wooden spoons. And I just thought actually, I'd really like to start mark making onto wood that would be nice for furniture. So that's also.

and my plan, when I get the time.

That sounds really interesting. You know, I think that's what I found through the beauty of doing this podcast is it's not just purely about sewing, it's anything in relation to sort of clothing or textiles. And it's really interesting having these conversations, especially about things that you don't know a lot about like dyeing and that kind of thing. So it's brilliant. And I should have asked you this at the start because it's kind of a start type question, but...

Speaker 2 (30:14.156)

For somebody looking to get into dyeing textiles using natural dyes, what's the process that you would go through? How do you start?

Okay, so your fabric choice is the main one. Choose a natural fibred fabric, so a cellulose, which is a cotton or a linen. Again, you can use viscose or you can use a protein fibre, which is a wool or a silk. Then you need to wash it. So this process is called scouring. So you're scouring the fabric to sort of break down any sort of oils because when fabrics are made,

them all manufactured. Sometimes they can have a coating on them or an oil build-up on the outside. Scouring sort of breaks that down and it leaves you that raw fibre then for you to then be able to dye with. So after you've done the scouring, which can, you can use soda ash for that or what I tend to use. So I, from working at a university in a dye lab,

My skin is actually quite sensitive to something, so I don't use soda ash. I tend to just chuck it in the washing machine with Eco-ver. And I do it twice, I wash it twice, just on a delicate setting. And then comes the mordant. So you would mordant your fabric. So depending on where you've been trained or what book you've read, each recipe is slightly different.

your quantities might be a 7 % ratio of your mordant to your fabric weight. Yeah, if your fabric weight is 100 grams, I can't do maths. So 7 % of that fabric weight is your alum or whatever mordant you want to use. And then what you would do is you would boil it up and then you would let it simmer for about an hour. Again, I'm a lazy dyer, so I tend to just boil it up.

Speaker 2 (31:54.594)

Don't worry about that.

Speaker 1 (32:10.382)

leave it to simmer as long as I can. Because sometimes I'm also doing things in a rush, which is so bad, but that's just how I am. I'm just chaotic. And then you can leave that just to soak in that sort of mordant mixture for about two days. I would say two days is great amount. I've dyed something that's been mordanted for about two hours. So it just works either way. It won't be as colourfast and it might not be as strong, but that's the general gist.

And then if you're working from a raw material, so if it's a bark or eucalyptus leaves or red onion skins or avocado, your extraction time might be slightly longer or smaller depending on what you've got to work with. So if you've got red onion skins, you would boil it up, let it simmer. So I tend to boil it and then let it simmer for about two hours and then you would strain it and then

you wet your fabric and then you put your fabric in and you dye it. So because I use the technique of bundle dyeing where I sprinkle dyes onto fabric, I mordant it and I sort of just squeeze out all of the residual liquid. I spread it across the table and I sprinkle dyes on it and then roll it up and then I sort of make it into this like donut shape or you can twist it into like a noodle shape.

and then tie it up and then steam it for about an hour. If it's a heavyweight fabric then you might want to steam it for longer. But if you're dyeing something you might want to dye it for about two hours. Sometimes you can leave it overnight. It depends, yeah.

So a lot of trial and error, but you know, like you say, for some things, there are a specific recipe that you have to follow. So to sort of tie this interview up, Jess, I like to do a little game of this or that. Is that okay with you? Yeah. So a meal out or a takeaway?

Speaker 1 (34:14.574)

Currently a meal out because I live in the middle of nowhere and there are no takeaways to be seen. So a meal out. Yeah.

Good choice. An organised studio or creative chaos.

I like creative chaos because my mind is a bit chaotic. I love things in boxes, but my boxes will not make sense. So I think that's just a mix of the two.

Fair enough. Tea or coffee?

Thank you.

Speaker 2 (34:44.568)

Spring, summer or autumn, winter?

Autumn, winter, I love a scarf.

that makes sense. Bold patterns or subtle textures?

both. Yeah, both together actually.

Organic shapes or geometric designs.

Speaker 1 (35:01.772)

The old me would say geometric, but now organic shape.

and soft pastels or earthy tones.

Can I choose both?

Yes you can. Bless you. Where can people find you Jess?

So I have a website, it's jesschantextiles.com. I'm also on Instagram at jesschantextiles. I'm doing, if you're local to Leicester, I'm doing a market on 29th and 30th of November. It's called the Makers Market, Midlands Makers Market, got to be specific there. I'm going to do Crafty Fox in December. I think December the 13th, the Saturday, but that'll be at the crossing. And I've got another two that haven't been.

Speaker 1 (35:44.974)

Yeah, but it will be on my website to list. So yeah.

Fantastic. So thank you so much for joining me today. It's been a really amazing insight into your work. So yeah, thank you very much.

Thanks, thanks for asking me. Thank you.

You're welcome, you take care. That's it for today's episode of the Sewing Social Podcast. Thanks so much for listening. If you're enjoying the show and want to support what we're doing, you can now leave us a tip over on Ko-fi. It's like buying us a virtual coffee or a spool of thread, and it helps us keep bringing you inspiring stories from the sewing community. You'll find the link in the show notes or at ko-fi.com forward slash

Sewing Social Pod. Until next time, happy sewing!