I'm not sure when it became proper practice to refer to hippie tie dye as the rather more fancy sounding shibori, but that I will do. In truth, I think there is a subtle difference; 60's-inspired tie dye tends to be quicker with more immediate and colourful results, whereas shibori is controlled, and looks directly to intricate (and ancient) Japanese binding, stitching and folding techniques. Shibori is often dyed using natural indigo - but by no means always - and the boundaries between the two techniques are definitely faint and blurry! These photographs are from a shibori workshop I went to in the summer, led by textile artist Janice Gunner at the beautiful Cowslip Workshops in Launceston, Cornwall. Cowslip is based in several converted barns on a dairy farm, so while you are at work, you can hear the cows mooing and enjoy the view across bright green fields. I spent two days making samples and trying out different techniques. First stitching, twisting and tying the cloth to create various resist patterns, before immersing the fabrics in buckets of deep indigo and lighter woad. When the indigo-dyed fabric is exposed to air, it is transformed from iridescent scarab beetle green to that perfect shade of deep, deep blue. It is almost a magical process and the reason many people get hooked on blues.

I've always been fascinated by natural dyeing as I love the idea of extracting colour from roots, berries, barks, leaves and wood. Lately I've seen a whole host of designers using natural dyes in their work. The potential of materials like saffron, pomegranate, woad and of course, the wonderful indigo-giving indigofera, are being rediscovered and used in contemporary ways.

A couple of projects that have caught my eye are Kirstie Van Noort's Color Collision, which sees ceramics dyed with red cabbage and then soaked in various liquids with different pH levels. The result is beautiful, surprising, and one-of-a-kind pieces steeped in colour. Merel Karhof also works with natural dye recipes and has created a wind powered knitting machine to weave scarves from her rainbow of yarns.

Meanwhile, Elodie Gobin’s Botanic Color Collection is an ongoing research project, exploring organic dyes and natural colour processes, using waste fruit and vegetables rejected by the food industry. Her most recent collection employs pigments extracted exclusively from beetroot and red cabbage and was used to dye the handles on a set of cutlery. Gobin’s colours are dependent on the seasonal availability of her sources, and she hopes that by adopting 100% natural dyes, people could become reconnected with this cycle.