Natural Dye Retreat Samples and Weaving Class Begins

Our Natural Dye Retreat participants left Window Rock today and we put together a look at the samples that we dyed yesterday. The retreat is a time to reflect on knowledge that is slipping away today and to appreciate the bounty of the Navajo homeland. Today was also the beginning of the first August session…

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Natural Dyes Navajo Style

Today, we collected the plants that we’ll use in a few hours to dye wool. We met with Rose Dedman and then went to the Defiance Plateau to collect sage, rabbitbrush, cliffrose and ground lichen. Then we headed out to Navajo, NM to collect Navajo tea, which can be used as an herbal tea as…

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Spinning and Dyeing in the Shade House

Today, we concluded our advanced weaving seminar, which has been newly dubbed Camp Weave-A-Lot, and we started our Natural Dye Retreat. We met at Burnham’s Trading Post in Sanders, AZ and got a look at some of the vegetally dyed colors that Marie Begay is able to achieve. We were also treated to a weaving…

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Advanced Weaving Seminar Visits and Projects

This was day two of our weaving seminar in Window Rock and we were pleased to have a visit with Morris Muskett who is an accomplished weaver and silversmith as well as a civil engineer with the New Mexico Department of Transportation.  (Full disclosure:  I also do Morris’s web site).  Morris’s work encompasses an incredible…

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Advanced Weaving Seminar-Gallup Inter-tribal Ceremonial

Today was the first day of the advanced weaving seminar that I’m coordinating for my best friend, master weaver Jennie Slick.  We’re using a meeting room at the Quality Inn in Window Rock and everyone is off to a great start with the their projects.  The idea behind the class is provide participants with concentrated…

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