ARTISAN Natural dye studio, Bristol, uk

Natural dye commissions, workshops, book and proud owner of the Bristol Cloth.

Prioritising local, organic, biodegradable materials.

Botanical Inks provides contemporary traditional artisan natural dyeing services from our Bristol based studio.

We are both the founding producer, owner and the natural dyers for the exciting Bristol Cloth project - A locally sourced and manufactured cloth for the UK.

Our new book, published by Quadrille in the UK/Europe, Hardie Grant in Australia/NZ and distributed by Chronicle Books in North America and Canada is available here.

We offer natural dyeing for non-toxic, natural fibre textiles, clothing and paper products, and a range of surface application techniques, including Shibori tie-dyeing, bundle dyeing with flowers and plant materials, organic indigo vat dyeing, block printing and screen printing with natural dye 100% plant-based inks, writing and drawing inks, Hapazome and ice-flower dyeing.

Find a workshop near you, or book a private tuition class at our studio in Bristol to suit individual requirements and interests. 

How we source our materials and the manufacturing systems we choose to invest in and support, are of the upmost importance to how we work.

We harness environmentally sustainable colour from the local landscape, gathering wild plants, harvesting organic produce and re-cycling farm & food waste to extract colour, along with well sourced traditional natural dye extracts.

We prefer to use organic and locally grown & manufactured fibres for our textiles and paper products, and work with suppliers of unbleached holistically-farmed Somerset wool, unbleached organic British-grown peace silk, and locally recycled unbleached paper. We also occasionally work with other organic British rare breed wool farmers and organic cotton from Germany and linen from Poland or recycled natural fibre textiles and vintage garments.

It’s from this passion for clean, responsible and locally grown and made materials that have lead us to create the Bristol Cloth.

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Prioritising local, renewable materials & low-impact processes, for creating natural colour and pattern, without the use of toxic synthetic chemicals or heavy metals, as part of a plant-based, non-toxic, circular design practice. 

Transition your creative practice with us.

The Bristol Cloth project showcases British heritage, preserving what this land has always offered and what British communities have done for centuries. We are set to prove that it is still commercially viable to make cloth on our shores, sustaining British tradition, culture, community, land and the economy.

Bristol Cloth is made with holistically farmed and biologically washed wool from Fernhill Farm, using carbon sequestering practices to lock carbon back into the soil where it belongs, regenerative soil fertility and offer the highest standards of animal welfare. Our lambswool yarn is naturally dyed with certified organic plant dyes by Botanical Inks. And woven at the Bristol Weaving Mill, the first industrial loom to open in Bristol in nearly 100 years. The entire process is done without the use of toxic synthetic chemicals and set mainly within a 15 mile radius of Bristol. Reducing the carbon footprint and creating a cloth which is actually safe to make, use, wear and go back into the ground at the end of its useful life cycle. Our system is fully traceable and contributes to our local community and economy, with fair pay terms to all suppliers.

By supporting this campaign, you can help re-create a local, resilient textile economy in the South West, offering an alternative to the unsustainable global textile production systems which have threatened traditional British cloths almost to extinction and critically damaged the health of our soils and biosphere; Support regenerative agriculture which captures carbon from the air and locks it back into the soil whilst also replenishing soil fertility; Help recreate our ability to dye textiles using non-toxic organic plant dyes; and bring artisan textile production back into our local economy. 

We are thrilled to be working with Bristol based designers to provide an exciting selection of rewards for you to purchase to help us back this project. Brown In Town are offering tailor made mens jackets and suits, Jokoto Tailors have flattering ladies kimono jackets and accessories and oB wear is a clothing label focusing on making high quality, considered garments that shape with us over the years. Offering a choice of unisex and zero-waste garments.

We’ve been overjoyed by the success of this project so far, with £7,000 raised in the first 5 days of our crowd funder campaign, smashing our first target and carrying on to meet our second target of £15,000 over the following weeks, finally reaching over £18,000.

The amount of support and enthusiasm for this project has been electric and ever so heartening! The BBC have graced our story with a full 3 minute feature on Points West News (below); Radio 4 have been in to interview us, and we have been written up in Selvedge Magazine, No Serial Number Magazine, Permaculture Magazine and several local Bristol papers including Bristol 24/7, The Bristol Magazine, Bristol Post, Bristol TV and the Mendip Times.

We still have plenty of Bristol Cloth available to order and doing so is of great benefit to our campaign. The crowdfunder has now closed, so please go to the online store here to pre-order and support this project:

Thank you to each and every one of you who has contributed to this project, be it with donations and pledges, sharing posts online and spreading the word amongst your community, writing about us, talking about us, encouraging us and sharing our excitement about this vital work. Together we are changing the way we manufacture textiles and positively influencing our shared future.

With gratitude and joy, Babs xx

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS