Elka

Elka Elka is a weaving & natural dye studio based in the South of the UK with a strong focus on teaching (both online and in-person) and sustainability.

You will find our courses on our website and shorter tutorials on our Youtube channel. Elka is a weaving and natural dyeing studio based in the South of the UK. With a strong focus on sustainability, we teach our crafts through in-person and online workshops, courses and 1-1 tuition.

We’re so looking forward to the WILD! Festival.Mum and I are giving our talk ‘Growing and Creating Colour from Plants’ a...
27/08/2026

We’re so looking forward to the WILD! Festival.

Mum and I are giving our talk ‘Growing and Creating Colour from Plants’ at 2pm on Thursday 17th September 🌿✨

I'm so happy to be teaching again at this year's Making Zen retreat, hosted by Kate Ward of Zen Stitching. This will be ...
27/08/2026

I'm so happy to be teaching again at this year's Making Zen retreat, hosted by Kate Ward of Zen Stitching. This will be my third year taking part, and it's one of my favourite events to be involved in.

It's a five day online retreat with 30 free workshop presentations from artists across the textile world. It's completely free to attend which I love, and it's organised so beautifully, a proper feel good event.

There are some really awesome workshops lined up this year. I'm particularly looking forward to Isabella Strambio's macrame mug cover and Madge Evers' cyanotypes for beginners, two crafts I've been wanting to try for ages.

My own workshop this year is Spooky Stone Weaving, an off-loom project using just yarn and a stone.

If you'd like to join in, all the details and your free ticket are below.

https://www.makingzen.com/a/2148242104/W97ccBu2 (affiliate link)

22/08/2026

Thanks folks ✨☀️💛☀️✨

21/08/2026

Mum and I are thrilled to be part of the Wi******er Cathedral WILD! Festival of Flowers and Nature, giving our talk 'Growing and Creating Colour from Plants' on September 17th at 2pm.

Running from the 15th to the 19th of September, WILD! explores floral creations, live botanical art, hands-on workshops and unexpected performances, with themes of biodiversity, wellbeing, sustainability, climate, creativity and hope.

We'll be talking about growing your own dye plants and the process of extracting their colour. Flowers and plants offer far more than beauty in a vase, hidden within their leaves, roots, bark and petals is an extraordinary world of natural colour that has been used for centuries to dye cloth, make inks and create paints.

I'll introduce some of the plants that can be grown in gardens, allotments and pots to produce natural colour, from traditional dye plants such as weld, madder and dyer's chamomile to surprising everyday sources from foraged to kitchen waste. Mum will then share the alchemy of natural dyeing, how plants release their colour, how fibres absorb it, and how simple ingredients can transform plants into a wide spectrum of colours.

We'll also be exploring natural inks and historic pigments, including oak gall ink, the traditional ink used for centuries in manuscripts and documents, including many historic texts found in cathedral and monastic libraries.

These clips and photos show some of the dye plants we use, and the incredible spectrum of colour that can be achieved, just a small taste of what we'll be covering on the day.

We're also very much looking forward to hearing Rachel Remnant's talk as part of the festival, on the Hampshire's Magnificent Meadows project she set up, we spent a lovely evening planting wildflower seeds with her earlier in the year and she's an absolute well of knowledge.

Tickets are £12, link below to book.

https://www.winchester-cathedral.org.uk/event/growing-and-creating-colour-from-plants-talk/

Weaving by its very nature is a deeply mindful craft, and from the moment I first sat at a loom in 2001 until today, it ...
19/08/2026

Weaving by its very nature is a deeply mindful craft, and from the moment I first sat at a loom in 2001 until today, it continues to be one of the most effective ways of calming my mind.

In 2023 I self published my first book, Weaving as Art Therapy for Beginners, a self-care workbook to help ease anxiety, stress and depression. Designed to help you relax and find inner peace through learning to weave, following simple, low-cost therapeutic weaving activities.

Teaching both traditional frame weaving and off-loom weaving techniques, I wanted to make the book as accessible as possible to as many people as possible.

Suitable for complete beginners, it will teach you everything you need to know to get set up and weaving, from sourcing or making your own materials and equipment, to multiple weaving techniques.

Focusing on the process over the outcome, the chapter of therapeutic weaving activities, written in collaboration with an art therapist, will guide you through ten different weaving activities to help ease anxiety, stress, depression and burn-out, along with activities for self-love, happiness, gratitude, relaxation, letting go and hope.

Thank you to everyone that has bought a copy, this month has been the book's best month to date and, as I send copies out, it feels so good thinking of it being read all over the world.

Thank you also to everyone that has shared your wonderful creations, little gives me greater joy, and your feedback has been invaluable in helping me put together the second edition, which I'm hoping will be published by the end of the year.

Signed paperback or downloadable PDF available via the Elka website below, or find it in paperback, hardback and Kindle via Amazon: https://geni.us/WeavingAsArtTherapy

Elka website: https://www.elkatextiles.co.uk/products/weaving-as-art-therapy-for-beginners-a-self-care-workbook

Back from a glorious trip away visiting friends in South Devon, and our annual family gathering in North Devon.These peo...
17/08/2026

Back from a glorious trip away visiting friends in South Devon, and our annual family gathering in North Devon.

These people feel like home. We're so lucky to be surrounded by their love.

Getting my head back into work mode this week and looking forward to catching up with Anne about our August newsletter, and mum to plan our upcoming talk 'Growing and Creating Colour from Plants' on September 17th at Wi******er Cathedral for their WILD! flower festival. I'll be sharing more on this later in the week, but in the meantime, you can book tickets below.

https://www.winchester-cathedral.org.uk/event/growing-and-creating-colour-from-plants-talk/

26/07/2026

Glorious start to the summer so far.

Bikes, boards, beaches, besties, forest walks, river swims, sushi, saunas, sunsets, pizza, cousins and our sweet, sweet Nova 💕

16/07/2026

Nature has a way of pulling you out of your own head when nothing else quite manages it. Watching the sunset and listening to the birds settle for the night was just what the doctor ordered......

Yesterday Mum and I headed up to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show press day for Sparsholt College’s natural dye garden, Washd...
19/05/2026

Yesterday Mum and I headed up to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show press day for Sparsholt College’s natural dye garden, Washday Hues 🌿

We were invited by horticulture lecturer Lucy Lewis to collaborate on and consult for the garden, which explored natural dye plants that can be grown in the UK.

Today we found out the garden has won a Silver Gilt award, which is just incredible news. Massive congratulations to the Sparsholt team. The amount of work, creativity and detail that went into this garden was extraordinary.

Mum did a natural dyeing demonstration in the afternoon with indigo vats, including dyeing a pair of Y-fronts which generated quite a lot of amusement from passers-by. Thankfully the vats behaved themselves.

Our contribution to the garden was a handwoven stool made using Mum’s naturally dyed linen, and Mum naturally dyed a whole clothesline of clothes for the washing line installation. We also put together a tutorial on solar dyeing for one of the info boards placed around the garden.

The garden featured a giant washing machine made by Cineco and planted with a mint roof, beautiful natural dye plants throughout the space, washing machine drums used as planters, and shelves of solar dyeing jars.

A personal highlight for me was meeting Carry Somers, founder of Fashion Revolution and author of The Nature of Fashion, who has done so much for sustainable and ethical textiles.

A thoroughly inspiring day all round.

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Stockbridge

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