Harvesting Color: How to Find Plants and Make Natural Dyes

…Make it this book! I can’t say enough about how lovely this book is in so many ways. The layout and organization is intuitive (harder to achieve than it sounds and especially important for any type of book that might become a reference book). The photos are gorgeous and the author’s banter is charming.I really love how the author doesn’t get self-righteous about things in a way that can be both off-putting and exclude entire swaths of people from being able to enjoy this beautiful activity. For example, she gives great tips about wildflowers for dyeing that are often mowed-down on the sides of roadways, so pay attention and harvest before they’re mowed. Or don’t have a 1/2 acre dye garden? You can pick up a marked-down, wilted bouquet of some flowers from a florist and make gorgeous dye with those!Being a native plant enthusiast, I bought the book after reading many recommendations on short posts about dyeing with different natives (bidens, coreopsis, pokeberries) and was not disappointed! It does make me wish that I lived in the arid west and had the sagebrush steppe plants to work with- ha! But there’s such a nice variety of plants and now I have a fun dye activity to do with friends out west when I visit!Seriously- if you can only start with one book on natural dyeing, this is the one!Edited to add: For those who complain about her only using alum as a mordant, and wanting the “saddened” colors that iron will give, she does include examples of iron ore-mordanted fiber on page 33 (photos) and then explains how and why you could do an iron after-bath on page 35. Frankly, there are two reasons I’m glad she doesn’t dwell on this. 1) Most natural dyeing resources focus a ton on “sad” earthy colors so my gosh- can people who love bright colors not have one book that focuses on achieving them? And 2) so many books on the topic get TOO complicated (mordant in this, then add some of that, but oh- nope- if you want this other effect then NEVER add that and instead do THIS and be sure it’s under the light of the full Capricorn moon to get this exact shade). It’s too much. What happens all too often with books that get too deep into every little variant is that beginners give up. But that said, there are plenty of reference books that will give you every single chemical detail and if that’s your jam- then get one of those. One book can’t do it all and in trying to do it all, would do a lot of it badly. Give me a book that does what it’s trying to do well and in a way that helps build confidence and curiosity to branch out and experiment any day!

What sets this book apart from other books on natural dyeing is the extensive information on where to find the plants (gardens, farmer's markets, fields, forests), and on when and how to harvest the plants. But the book also includes complete, illustrated instructions on how to dye wool fiber and yarn using inexpensive, easy-to-find equipment, and many, many recipes for making natural dyes from specific plants.The book is divided into two parts: Part One includes a brief historical discussion of gatherers and dyers, describes necessary materials and tools for natural dyeing, and sets out a "master dye bath" and other general recipes for dyeing. In this part, the author cautions that national and state parks have strict no-harvest rules. However, she notes that national forests allow harvesting for personal use, that water and open-space districts will often grant harvesting permits, and that other sources for harvesting plants exist. The author also explains that she has included no recipes for tin, chrome, or copper-powder mordants (mordants bind the dye and fabric tightly), because widespread discarding of the metallic leftover dye water could quickly lead to unhealthy concentrations of these toxic metals in local soil. Clearly, the author is highly dedicated to the cause of environmental preservation, but her informative text is gentle in tone, and neither preaches nor communicates any "eco-politically correct" sense of superiority.Part Two, which makes up the bulk of the book, describes the individual dye plants, and is organized by the four harvesting seasons. Each plant has its own mini-section, which includes (1) a U.S. map colored in to show where the plant grows, (2) the Latin name, (3) a brief general description of the plant's history and characteristics, (4) specific instructions on finding the plant, (5) instructions on harvesting it, (6) a dye recipe tailored to the plant, (7) a clear photograph of the living plant, and (8) a photograph of a skein of yarn dyed with the plant. The beautiful full-color photographs should enable most people to recognize the plants in the wild, and to be reasonably sure of what colors to expect in the dyed yarn.The complete list of plants is: Summer (hollyhock, ironweed, Mexican cliffrose, big basin sagebrush, zinnia, desert rhubarb, rabbitbrush, rosea, coyote brush, Japanese indigo, elderberry, goldenrod, tickseed sunflower); Fall (pokeweed, black walnut, trembling aspen, staghorn sumac, mountain mahogany, white sage, curly dock, sorrel); Winter (toyon, coffee berry, madder root, prickly pear cactus, cochineal insects, tansy); Spring (cota, sticky monkey flower, horsetail, fennel, California sagebrush, French broom).Although I have only a casual interest in actually dyeing my own yarn, this is a book that I'm delighted to own, and to have on my knitting reference shelf. I rate it at 5 stars.

I have recently gotten interested in herbal dyeing (as it crosses over from my artistic side to my nature-loving-herb-garden-growing side) and this is my first book to have bought to help me get started on the path of herbal dyeing.I have to say the pictures are wonderful, the layout is simple, it's well written and everything is explained very well. There are even a few craft projects in here to give you some inspiration on what to do with all that yarn and cotton and everything else you're going to be dyeing.My only complaint is that it mostly focuses on plants found in the South-west, in California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada. Plants like sagebrush, tumbleweeds, and prickly pear cactus. As I live in the Mid-west, in Ohio, most of the plants in the book don't grow in my area unless you cultivate them, which is not a big deal for some of them, but others really won't do well without a greenhouse. On the other hand, there are plants that you can find everywhere you look up here, like Poke berries, Ironweed, and Goldenrod.I would still recommend it to anyone interested in getting into herbal dyes, though, since most of the plants can still be planted and grown here.

I am a plant-dyer and have dyed my yarn for a few years now. This book gave me more well-explained and simple local plants by season to use to dye yarn. I tried Rabbit Brush and made another shade of yellow. It reinforced my knowledge I already have yet expanded it to other local trees and plants in my area that I will use to dye yarn. I like the author's experience, as well as her sustainable and ethical dye practices. Highly worth it. Unfortunately, I was enrolled to take the author's plant-dye class up north but ended up not being able to make it. Hopefully, next year!

Bought this for my wife. As it is American, some of the plants may not be available in the UK.

I wanted some recipes for naturally dyeing yarn since I had taken a workshop on the subject. The book is great and quite helpful. I've already attempted several plant dyes that are native to our climate. Unfortunately most of the plants mentioned in the book grow west and south west of the US, the author beeing from California herself. I live in Eastern Canada, climate beeing different than California. Some of the plants are unfamiliar to us. Other than that the book is well written and easy to understand.

I finished reading this in one night, but I will be returning to it day after day. This is an amazing book full of coloured photos, easy dye instructions and a wealth of wonderful, useful information about plants and dyes and our future with them. Rebecca divides this book into sections, one being the 4 seasons and which plants come out at that time and where in North America they are located. She even gives a few examples of crafts you can do with plants, such as lead prints and plant pounding. Just the two things I wanted to try :)Love it! I also recommend visiting her websites for more info and inspiration[...]

A great resource if you are in the USA...all references etc are specific to certain states. Not so applicable to the eastern province of Newfoundland...wish I’d known

I really appreciate the care taken to create this book. The pictures are well done and information is exactly what I was looking for. I plan to use the information in my next dying session.