Lizzy Leckie: Weaving with Plant Dyed Yarns

Join Lizzy Leckie for a weaving workshop and kōrero about using plant materials for dyeing fibre. Have a go at weaving on a rigid heddle loom or simple frame loom, and create a bookmark-sized keepsake to take away.

Lizzy will supply a range of her plant-dyed yarns to weave with, and discuss foraging materials from the natural environment to achieve beautiful colours. Bring your questions!

Featured in She Shed: Contemporary Wool Craft, the striking colours in her textile works are produced using tree bark, sap, flowers, seaweed, mineral deposits, fruit and leaves.

“I find that when I’m weaving with wool and fibre dyed from plants, everything vibrates together naturally and the colour combinations always work, in the same way that a garden intrinsically works. Colours from plants have a different vibration and a depth that chemical dyes don’t have, and I think that’s because the colours have the history of the plant in them.” – Lizzy Leckie

Lizzy Leckie lives in Kūaotunu on the east coast of the Coromandel Peninsula. She grew up in the Otago town of Milton, and her grandmother Googie, an accomplished craftswoman across many disciplines, taught Lizzy how to spin fibre, weave and knit. During family holidays in Hāwea she went foraging with Googie for lichen and other natural items to use as dyes. These days, Lizzy has set up a trapline in the bush and regularly forages for windfallen plants. A pile of walnuts washed downstream from her neighbour’s property recently quickly made their way into her dye-pot.

The event is held in connection with She Shed: Contemporary Wool Craft, on at Petone Settlers Museum until 16 Oct 2022.