A sustainable society requires new ways of working and collaborating. In addition, we need to find new ways to take advantage of the natural resources that we have at our disposal.
Our new workshops, with the mentor fashion designer @irina.tosheva, were held in the school “Vanco Prke” located in Vinica. The workshop Introduction to Natural Dyeing lasted full 3 days of work, and during it, we managed to exchange a lot of skills, information, and knowledge connected with sustainable fashion and textiles.
We learned how to use natural plants (botanical dyes) onto cotton, by means of a dye bath. Create beautiful oranges and yellows from rice straw and husk, onion skins, turmeric, green and violet from cabbage, and dark red from beet. Youth made an experience with local materials moss and walnut tree leaves. Also, we used lignin to dye the organic cotton. Lignin is broken down in the rice straw cooking process so that the fibers can be separated from each other and become pulp. Second, only to cellulose, lignin is nature’s most common polymer. The result – nice yellow color for our cotton.
We like to work with as many sustainable materials as possible and, where possible, we try to source end-of-lines and materials that would otherwise go to waste.
These three days were an excellent chance for youth to get a bunch of answers about sustainability, the culture of weaving with handloom and using rice straw and textile leftovers, and start creating unique outfits. New skills and personal experiences have been acquired through the activities, that both teachers from Vanco Prke school and the youth participants.
With supporting GEF Small Grant Programme, the youth had an opportunity to use on workshops the new sewing and overlock machines. We are thankful for the teachers from “Vanco Prke” school, who were all these days and help us to learn and spark with youth.
Ready to join our journey?
