A chemistry teacher with a lifelong love of textiles Nicola left the classroom to follow a childhood dream of going to Art College.
Triggered by a strong desire to redress the careless use of synthetic dyes worldwide, she completed an MA with distinction in sustainable textile design at Chelsea College of Art and Design.
Nicola has continued to pursue a desire to see natural dyes more readily available as a sustainable option in printing home textiles.
She launched Madder Cutch & Co. last year and using plant extracts such as woad, madder, cutch, weld and pigments such as charcoal she has adapted the most environmentally friendly methods, to show off these colours at their beautiful best.
Plant dyes have been used since antiquity and have a long and interesting history, they still deserve a place in our homes.
Inspiration from her surroundings and a love to draw, Nicola turns her sketches into flowing repeats and screen-prints them by hand in her garden studio.
The delicate flowers of Achillea millefolium that grow in the garden every summer have led to her first collection.
It took Nicola considerable time to produce the colours for her first collection but she had a great deal of fun coming up with their names; all of which are inspired by her home surroundings of Stamford, Lincolnshire – a beautiful Georgian town where she lives and where her studio is.
Nicola is one of fifteen designer/makers that are members of Design Factory and part of our current Summer 2017 exhibition with them called EMERGE.
Please call in to see Nicola’s fabulous homewares and notebooks made with her hand screen-printed linen using sustainably sourced plant dyes and pigments.; you won’t be disappointed with the quality or the design.
Emerge runs until 8th October x
