Guest Author - Katelyn Thomas

If you craft as well as gardening, you may be interested in dyed fabrics and yarns. Did you know that gardeners have the materials for beautiful dyes right at their fingertips? The new book Dye Plants and Dyeing by John and Margaret Cannon is a wonderful resource for those gardeners who want to grow dye plants or for serious fiber artists.

If you have never dyed anything before, the first chapter of Dye Plants and Dyeing is a must read. It gives all of the basic information on supplies you will need for dyeing. Also, there is a very good explanation of mordants, the different materials that can be used to make natural dyes permanent.

The rest of this book is a listing of dye plants. Each plant has detailed information on which parts are best for making dyes and how to extract the color from the plants. However, to me, the most useful part of this book is the color samples for each plant. Since different mordants can change the final color of the dyed yarn or fabric, there are samples of color for each mordant.

Finally, the book is worth buying just for the beautiful illustrations of each of the forty eight plants covered in the second section.

If I only had one dyeing book in my reference library, Dye Plants and Dyeing would be that book. It is well written, informative, and easy to use. John and Margaret Cannon did an excellent job writing this little volume and Gretel Dalby-Quenet’s illustrations are lovely. I give it five out of five sunflowers.

About the Book:
Title: Dye Plants and Dyeing
Authors: John and Margaret Cannon
Publisher: Timber Press
Date: 2003
Pages: 128
ISBN: 0-88192-572-1
Price: $19.95