Wild Color: The Complete Guide to Making and Using Natural Dyes Paperback – January 1, 2010

Wild Color is the best book for learning and using basic recipes for preparing various materials for dye. The book covers quite a few types of plant materials (leaves, roots, stems) and the expected colors you may achieve if you process the materials alone, and new shades with various mordants. Dean lays out the book with an easy to read key with color examples. You will lean the basic recipes at the start, and the dye pages are organized by the plant. It includes shades you can achieve based on the part of the plant, and where applicable, the season you collect the material. The pages for each plant also discuss cultivation, where the plant can be grown, how to harvest and process along with the handy color guide for what your dye will yield depending on your preparation on the dye material. A must have book. Hang on to it and don't lend it out because you'll never get it back. :-)

Very colorful and in depth book. We are using the info to dye cotton. Very happy with it.

I saw a friend's copy of this book at a wool-dying session and it was so incredibly beautiful that I had to buy it. The official description includes this passage: "This comprehensive book outlines all the necessary equipment, how to select fibers and plant parts, choose the right methods for mordanting and dyeing, test color modifiers and the fastness of dyed colors, and obtain a range of gorgeous colors from every plant, from alter to woad, shown in more than 250 swatches." This does not do the book justice. The color swatches offer a side-by-side comparison of various color treatments on various materials. In practice, your color swatches are not going to exactly match any book-prescribed color, but this gives a pretty good view (and discussion) of the options available for creating color shades.When I originally paged though the book, I did not notice how detailed the descriptions of dye plants were (I got sucked into the gorgeous colors). I thought I would have to buy another book (I was thinking I'd also need A Dyer's Garden, which is out-of-print and somewhat hard to find), but I think this will do for now. It includes instructions on using various parts of many plants and preparing the dye and mordant.

I have been using natural dyes for quite some time, but this book was still well worth it. She covers so many different dye plants and methods. It's a fantastic book! My only quibbles are with the production--the type in this paperback is rather cramped, but I know it's expensive to produce full-color books these days. Also, I spent a great deal of time searching for the meaning of the little symbols next to the color samples--I could tell they were about preparation/mordants, but for the life of me, I must have searched for a light year to find the key--which is located in the narrative section at the beginning of the book (p 21, in the introduction, which sounds like an obvious place but I found it very hard to locate!).

Much important information

I bought this book as an introduction to natural dyeing based on several recommendations. I have been mostly pleased with the information in the book. It's not perfect, and I think the title is slightly misleading, but it's a solid introduction.The good:It has a good list of natural dye sources along with color swatches that show the colors achieves using the plant alone, plant plus mordant, plant alone plus modifier, and mordant, plant, and modifier. Very very usefulIt has a very clear introduction to dying that covers techniques and steps in the dyeing process (it even has a small section on using urine to dye with indigo and woad). Pretty thorough for for a relatively small book.The illustrations are well done and in full color.The bad:Organization - the key for the plant sections is located on page 20, which is 2 sections away from the plant section. It's located in a small sidebar that is easily overlooked. Why couldn't the sidebar be located in the chapter it's actually related to?I was expecting more of an emphasis on plants native to North America. From the title I expected it to be a book of dyes that *I* could collect from the wild. WHile there are several that grow wild either as native plants or as imports, that is not at all the focus. THe focus is on natural dyes, and the plants listed are largely cultivated species grown in various locations in the world, not wild plants you can find in your backyard.The conclusion:This is a good book, you will not go wrong in buying it as an introduction to natural dyeing. The organizational quibble can be overcome (remember, key to the plant section is on page 20). Once you've read through this book and practiced you should be well equipped to begin experimenting with plants that do grow wild in your own yard!

This book will give you all the essentials on getting started with natural dyestuffs. It covers what plants to look for, approximate colors, and detailed information on best methods for color extraction. It covers a lot of information on mordants and modifiers, and which ones will most likely get you the best colors. It also covers a lot of local plant possibilities as well as ones you would have to order, but the book assumes you are working with actual plant matter and not dye extracts. This shouldn't be the only book you ever look at but in my opinion its the best one to start with. The only thing I'm not fond of is the color swatches, which aren't entirely accurate. I would prefer actual fiber samples to get a better idea. It's a lot of information to take in as well. But it's a great book to start with and it will come in handy for a long time.