Emily Criddle
Emily is a textile designer and Edinburgh University graduate specifically interested in sustainability in the textile industry. She creates printed fabrics using natural dyes derived from UK and European natural dye plants such as madder, weld and woad. As a designer, she believes it is imperative that we tackle the lack of transparency in the textile industry and make great efforts to ensure design is sustainable and non-toxic.
Emily Criddle
MSc Textile Sustainability and Innovation, Leeds
BA Textiles, Ednburgh College of Art
Statement
| Emily is a textile design graduate from The University of Edinburgh and a current MSc Textile Sustainability student at The University of Leeds. She is interested in pursuing a career in the sustainable textile industry, with a particular focus on dyeing, print and fibre production. Initially, her creative work evolved from a love of nature, colour from plants, and the possibility of extracting dye from the natural world. She started to work with natural dyes at university, experimenting with botanical pigments found in Heather, Logwood, Madder, Scabious and Dock. Emily was especially interested in how she could harness plant colour to create dyes for printed textiles. These were then applied to a textile collection during her undergraduate degree. Utilising her research in mordanting and modifiers as well as natural bindings, printing solutions and thickeners, Emily created a collection of fabrics printed and dyed entirely from natural dyes. Her concept aimed to expose the industry’s lack of environmental transparency, weaving this into the print designs on her textiles meanwhile celebrating the beautiful tones and shades created from using natural, plant-based dyes. |
Materials and Techniques
| Silk Screen for screen printing Dye bath Dye liquor Alum mordant Dyer’s Chamomile Lemon Juice (modifier) Squeegee Steamer Print Bed Logwood Madder Dye powder extract Soda Ash Nettle Hollyhock Emily wants to discover new ways to create colour for printed textiles derived from natural sources. Natural dyes take time and patience to produce. Most plant matter needs to be simmered in a dyebath for several hours before extracting the pigment. Processes such as scouring, mordanting, dyeing and filtrating echo throughout her practice. |
Awards and Development
| Fellow participant on the 1st Homo Faber Fellowship programme 2023/2024 6 month internship at natural dye print studio, Madder Cutch and Co. Work placement at Boden, London with the Fabric and Sustainability team. Current MSc student in textile Sustainability and Innovation at The University of Leeds. |