Rainbow Weave School Project

Natural dyes - Rainbow Weave school project

In late June 2025 I visited a local primary school for a creative project funded by Farnham Councils South Street Fund. 

The children aged 6 to 7, came in small groups to learn about dyes from natural materials and to have a hands on experience of being part of the process of dyeing fibres which were then to be used in a collaborative weave.

They were introduced to the fibre, fleece from Southdown sheep and yarn from blue faced Leicester. The majority of children had seen sheep, a few lived on farms, and one had even seen them being sheared. We chatted about how wool  becomes fabric, and they were all keen helpers,  helping me to spin some yarn on my drop spindle. 

Three historical natural dyes were used; Madder (pinks, reds), Weld (yellows) and Indigo (blues). These were over-dyed for secondary colours.

Four Solar jars were made by the children so they could observe the colour take up over a week. They used tea, onion skins, dyer’s chamomile and dyer’s coreopsis.

Once I had washed and dried the fibres, they were split into warm and cool colours ready for the weaving session.

The children explored their creativity, responding to the colours and yarn textures as they worked in pairs or three’s to weave on circular frames.

The resulting weaves were strung to create a mobile as a gift for the school as these children were soon to leave for Junior school.

It was a real privilege to share these heritage skills with the children and staff and to work together to create the Rainbow Weave.