Slow Grown: Plants, Folklore and Natural Dyeing. Ciara Callaghan

This title feels less like a conventional book and more like an incantation, threading together plant lore, stitch history and the slow alchemy of colour. Rooted in the traditions of dyers who relied on what grows in field and forest, this zine invites readers into a world where oak bark, apple skins and elder flowers yield not only pigment but stories — memory markets embedded in cloth and plant alike. It balances practical know-how with cultural resonance, showing how women — as makers, herbalists, stitchers and everyday alchemists — passed dye knowledge through families and communities across generations. In this way, the narrative treats dyeing not simply as technique, but as a form of deep engagement with landscape, season and ritual: earth → fibre → colour becomes a loop of craft, identity and belonging.

Rather than a glossy craft manual, the zine invites slow curating: ten accessible dye recipes using local foraged materials; folklore that foregrounds makers as custodians of tradition; and gentle prompts to see the natural world not as backdrop to creative practice but as collaborator. For readers drawn to textile surfaces and the pre-industrial rhythms of making, this is a meditation on colour’s origins, the stories sewn into cloth, and the ways dyeing can reconnect hand, plant and soil.

About the Author
Ciara Callaghan is the artist behind this zine, with a practice anchored in natural dyeing, botanical materials and the cultural histories that surround them. Her work often blends research with hands-on experimentation, honouring the women and makers who historically practised dyeing as necessity and craft. Through Plants, Folklore and Natural Dyeing, she aims to revive and share plant-based dye methods in ways that are accessible, ecological, and rooted in a renewed appreciation of place and process.

Publication date: 2022
Publisher: Common Threads Press
Pages: 40
Binding: Paperback
ISBN: 9781399920322