Discover new ways to color and design fabrics, making them truly your own. Explore natural dyeing techniques using the leaves, flowers, or roots of plants from the Folk School’s dye garden.
Catalogs are hitting mailboxes soon, but our fully interactive digital catalog has been available.
Dyeing Classes
Explore The Studio
Wet Room in Davidson Hall
The perfect studio for those who like to get messy. It’s particularly good for classes whose students like to dye things, as it has big drains in the concrete floor we can just hose down (hence the name). There are banks of counters with ranges for dye pots. Spinning classes are often held here too since it provides such a nice, spacious area.
Cory Brown Memorial Dye Garden
The Cory Brown Memorial Dye Garden is made possible thanks to a generous endowment from Donna and Cliff Brown in memory of their beloved son. Established in 2020, the garden features a wide array of dye plants including indigo, coreopsis, yarrow, French marigolds, madder, chamomile, and purple gromwell, among others.
News & Stories: What's Happening in Dyeing
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August 30, 2023
Notable textile designer and dyer...
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July 24, 2023
Browse our August 2023–June 2024...
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March 10, 2023
Dezzy, in the middle, and...
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February 14, 2023
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October 31, 2022
In 2022, we opened Olive’s...
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October 25, 2022
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August 29, 2022
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July 25, 2022
Building on your feedback, we're...
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July 22, 2022
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June 3, 2021
Jessica Kaufman is the founder and owner of WAXON Studio in West Asheville, NC. She recently joined Tammy Elwell to talk about her relationship with the Folk School, her dyeing process, and realizing her dream of creating batik and tie-dye kitchen textiles. Enjoy our interview!
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February 10, 2021
Last fall, I and eight other craftspeople joined John C Campbell for the second session of the Traditional Craft Mentorship program. During this four-week program, we lived, ate, and crafted on campus (socially distanced of course). While we wait patiently for the Folk School to open in person later this year, I thought I’d share a story about just one adventure that befell us in October.
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July 13, 2020
Welcome to the new Folk School Dye Garden. Natural dye comes from the leaves, flowers, or roots of plants. In this video, we will take a look at Nankeen cotton, indigo, coreopsis, yarrow, French marigolds, madder, chamomile, and purple gromwell.
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November 13, 2019
Have you ever wanted to try batik and hand-dyeing? We have a very special surface design class coming up on January 12–18, 2020 with Jessica Kaufman: Studio Batik: Many Techniques, Amazing Results. Jessica has studied batik methods from Indonesia and India and is the owner of WAXON Batik & Dye Studio in Asheville, NC.
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June 30, 2015
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June 19, 2014
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March 11, 2014
I stopped by the Yarn Circle on a Monday afternoon to speak with Martha Owen, our beloved longtime Resident Artist in Spinning, Knitting, Dyeing and Felt Making. We talked about many things including fiber arts, raising sheep, travel, artistic process, Fair Isle, her rich history with the Folk School, and more. Enjoy our interview!
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October 28, 2013
Cindy Alley wrote a great blog about her experience as a student in last week’s “Yoruba Batik, Adire, and Tie Dye” with Gasali Adeyemo (Oct. 20-25, 2013):
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January 27, 2013
Spinning, Knitting & Crochet, Feltmaking, Dyeing & Surface Design Resident Artist
Martha Owen
Martha began her adventure in spinning at this very school in 1978. Since then, her extended family has included sheep (mostly Corriedale/ Merino, Romney, Shetland and a little Blue-faced Leicester for fun) and French Angora rabbits. A banjo player known to tell a story or two, Martha’s interest in sheep and wool, music and dance, have carried her quite literally and joyfully around the world. Her children say she is a wool nerd, but her sheep say she is outstanding in her field! Martha became a member of the Southern Highland Craft Guild in 1988, and was co-owner of the Yarn Circle in Murphy, NC, a store catering to fiber enthusiasts. She has been teaching spinning, natural dyeing and knitting design since 1984.
Images from the Studio
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