Wall filled with yarn, crafts, cups, and other supplies. (Photo: Aubrey Fink)

On Sunday afternoons, friends and neighbors gather in a sunny space on W. Rittenhouse Street for My Dye Garden Studio’s free community class. They are encouraged to bring their current fiber arts projects with them. 

Their hands move quickly – knitting, crocheting, sewing, embroidering – but it doesn’t slow down the shared conversations. Others work independently, floating between sewing machines and ironing boards. The studio where they work is abuzz. 

My Dye Garden Studio is a new fiber arts workshop located at 216 W. Rittenhouse St.

Owner and founder Nicole Nicola hosts a variety of classes and workshops in knitting, crochet, embroidery, cross-stitch, and machine sewing. She also stocks a selection of natural, plant-dyed fiber art supplies, including yarn, wool felt, and silk embroidery threads, as well as the plant dyes themselves.

The space is cozy – bookcases filled with yarn and felt, paper lanterns hanging from the high ceiling, and an eclectic mix of art and furniture. Some folks can sit together around the couches, others at a long communal table.

Nicola is a longtime Mt. Airy resident. She helped start the Waldorf School of Philadelphia on Wayne Ave. and taught there for the last 30 years. After leaving her position last summer, she knew she needed to find her own studio. 

“All I really know how to do is plant, dye, and teach,” said Nicola.

She toured the space in the fall of 2025 — a small, first-floor storefront that had been vacant for a while. But what sold her was around the corner — a hidden gate that opened to a large side yard. It was filled with rocks, tires, and a lot of overgrowth. But Nicola saw potential.

After signing the lease in December 2025, Nicola got to work clearing out the yard. In early spring, she built six raised production beds for dye plants like indigo, coreopsis, madder root, and cosmos. Growing and harvesting these dye plants herself is an essential part of her process. 

For Nicola, natural dyeing is about much more than color.

“Plant color is this bringing together [of] two things I think humans have lost, and contribute a great deal to anxiety and disconnectedness. One is our connection to nature. The other is the connection to our own creativity, to our hands. One or the other is not enough. But when those things come together, the beauty of the earth passes through you, through your work, into some use in the world. Something beautiful, something useful in the world. That cycle right there is really healing. It feeds people so much to make something.”

That philosophy shapes everything the studio offers, inviting people to connect with nature and their own creativity through making.

Nicola is proud of how far the studio can come in less than a year, but she’s even more excited about what’s ahead. “It’s only going to get better,” she said. 

For neighbors like Diego, who has lived on and off the block for twenty years, the studio is already bringing people together and giving neighbors the opportunity to get to know each other. He has even started learning to sew, attending the Men’s Machine Sewing class. 

“There was a community, but it wasn’t as tight-knit as it is now,” he said. “It’s a beautiful, beautiful thing.”

Neighbors can stop by Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday from 11 a.m.–5 p.m., and for the Free Community Class on Sunday from 2–4 p.m.

Learn more at www.mydyegardenstudio.com.

Aubrey Fink is a Germantown neighbor, designer, and artist with a passion for local storytelling. She is inspired by the people, places, and culture that make Germantown special and believes community flourishes through connection, curiosity, and shared stories.