Maker's Spotlight: Kate Kilmurray

Meet Kate Kilmurray! A weaver and member of our Natural Dye Community. Kate is the founder of The Weaving Way Community, an online group of over 100 weavers across the US. She incorporates mindfulness into her textile art practice and the result is gorgeous handwoven potholders that are both functional and elegant. We caught up with Kate to hear and see what she is up to these days! 

Tell us about your creative practice:

For me, hand-weaving is a form of calming and beautiful ritual, a way of coming home and connecting to the rhythms of life. When I sit down to weave, I gather inwards, feel the natural rhythm of my breath, and hold space for silence. My designs emerge from this stillness. My experience of weaving is one of deep presence and awareness, and each of my weaving is a kind of offering—a deepening into life.

The result of this weaving-meditation is a simple, elegant, and useful tool. Handwoven potholders protect our hands, our counter tops, and our tables. They remind us to slow down, do less, and be present as we prepare the food that nourishes and sustains us. By incorporating hand-weavings in the kitchen, we can bring more depth, beauty, and meaning to our daily lives. 

What sparked your interest in natural botanical dyes?
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Botanical dyes connect my weavings in a meaningful way to the source of my creativity, the natural world.  The wonderful variety and uniqueness achieved through seasonality and the individual dyeing practice is fascinating, sparking my creative juices and making my weavings more alive.  
Earlier this year I began working with a location-based natural plant dye practitioner and knowing that the materials I am using are honouring the earth and using her resources in a sustainable way is becoming key to my inspiration and practice.  It is nurturing and restoring to work in this way.

Learn about Kate's workshops

Image via Kate Kilmurray

​Tell us about an exciting project that you have coming up!

Through both in-person and online “Weaving as Meditation” workshops, I guide people to use their hands in craft and contemplation, to quiet the mind, and to reconnect with their innate creative essence. They leave my workshops with the skill to bring inner calm and beauty to their corner of the world.  I’m excited to widen my workshop reach in 2022 with key events planned with organisations including @themakingapp and Fuller Craft Museum.  

 As founder of The Weaving Way Community, an online group of over 100 handweavers from across the US, I will also be concentrating on delivering another year of fascinating guest speakers from all forms of weaving discipline.  As a collective, we are pioneering the modernization and continuation of a traditional crafting practice and I am very proud to bring so many talented people together virtually on a regular basis. 

We've got a special workshop in the works with Kate coming in 2022 in the meantime you can find out more about Kate's workshops, online shop and The Weaving Way Community via her website and Instagram account: @katekilmurray 

Learn more about Natural Dyeing