It’s that time of year and we’re planning what the next few months hold in store for us. We’re thrilled to be back at the V&A teaching our ‘Natural Dyeing: A Heritage of Colour‘ textile course which runs from the 22nd – 26th of July. V&A Members can book tickets now and general booking opens to everyone from 10.00 GMT on Monday 12 February.

As well as learning about different types of natural dyes and best practice in hands on workshops over the five days, the course includes a private gallery tour with V&A curator Susan North looking at pre-1800 fashion & textiles in the collection and a talk on India’s natural dyes and their impact on global fashion with V&A curator Avalon Fotheringham. You can read more about Avalon’s research into this fascinating subject in her post Inspired to Make. You can read all about the week’s itinerary and see more images from October’s course in the journal post. We had such a wonderful time teaching in October and we are delighted to have been asked back.

‘The two tutors, Ross and Jonny, were excellent! They were engaging, well prepared, organised and delivered an action packed course in which they shared their knowledge and gave a lot of hands on practice‘ Previous Course students’ feedback

‘The course was quite literally the best textile course I have ever participated in. I had not appreciated in advance just how complex the information was but Ross and Jonny broke it down at every stage into manageable chunks.‘

We are also really pleased to have a new home for moderneccentrics. We are taking part in the Florence Trust residency scheme and have a studio at their new base in Holy Trinity Church, Cloudsley Square, Islington. A short walk from Angel station on the Northern Line, the church is Grade II* , built 1826-9 to the design of Sir Charles Barry.

We will be running a series of workshops throughout the year, some in association with the Trust so watch for further updates here or on our moderneccentrics social media accounts. We will also be running events during Stitch Festival (21-24 March) at the Business Design Centre, minutes from the studio. We hope to see you soon!

It’s been an incredibly busy few weeks for us. There was a huge amount of preparation involved in getting ready to teach a comprehensive natural dyeing course at the V&A and thankfully I can safely say that our course ‘Natural Dyeing: A Heritage of Colour‘ couldn’t have gone better!

It was an intensive week and we were all exhausted by the end of it, some of us barely able to string a sentence together, but the consensus was that it had been a wonderful week. We received lovely feedback with one student saying it was the best course she’d ever been on! You can read all about the week’s itinerary and see more images in the journal post. If you missed this opportunity, contact the V&A Academy at courses@vam.ac.uk to register your interest – 2024 is just around the corner!

We would both like to thank our great friend and teacher, the wonderful Jenny Dean, whose book we uses as the basis for this course, for all her ongoing help and support. A big shout out also goes to Liza Mackenzie, our V&A Academy producer (and Indigo grower and dyer herself) for supporting us and helping make the course a reality.

All text and images © moderneccentrics.

We have had a very busy few months! Following on from our very successful workshop for the London Business School Student Association, we headed off to Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft to deliver a sold out Handmade Experimental Brushes and Botanical Inks workshop. This is part of a series of workshops to coincide with Shōji Hamada: A Japanese Potter in Ditchling. Ross also delivered a private contact printing workshop at the Duke of Cambridge for a textile group and we are hoping to deliver more workshops there over the next few months.

Ross will be exhibiting at ‘Warped’, the new PRISM show at Art Pavilion, Mile End Park. The exhibition runs from Thursday 20th April to Monday 1st May, and he will be delivering contact printing as part of the series of workshops, on the 24th of April.

In February, I accompanied my Mother on a visit to India to learn traditional Block Printing on a holiday of a lifetime organised by Aahilya Holidays (whom I cannot recommend highly enough). I have been back a few weeks and writing up all our adventures in detail. Working through the thousands of photos I took whilst there is taking a while! You can see and read more about them here.

We have had a very busy few months! Following on from our very successful workshop for the London Business School Student Association, we headed off to Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft to deliver a sold out Handmade Experimental Brushes and Botanical Inks workshop. This is part of a series of workshops to coincide with Shōji Hamada: A Japanese Potter in Ditchling. Ross also delivered a private contact printing workshop at the Duke of Cambridge for a textile group and we are hoping to deliver more workshops there over the next few months.

Ross will be exhibiting at ‘Warped’, the new PRISM show at Art Pavilion, Mile End Park. The exhibition runs from Thursday 20th April to Monday 1st May, and he will be delivering contact printing as part of the series of workshops, on the 24th of April.

In February, I accompanied my Mother on a visit to India to learn traditional Block Printing on a holiday of a lifetime organised by Aahilya Holidays (whom I cannot recommend highly enough). I have been back a few weeks and writing up all our adventures in detail. Working through the thousands of photos I took whilst there is taking a while! You can see and read more about them here.

Please get in touch to order our titles ‘Still Life‘, documenting our show at the Leicester Contemporary, and ‘Artefact‘, looking at Ross’ ongoing Artefact series. Each title is available at £18 including uk postage and packaging, moderneccentrics@gmail.com