The wild dyer A maker's guide to natural dyes with projects to create and stitch

Abigail Booth

Book - 2019

Fabrics colored with natural dyes have a beauty and subtlety all of their own. Onion and avocado skins, chamomile and birch bark, and nettles and acorns can produce lovely, ethereal colors and effects. The Wild Dyer demystifies this eco-conscious art, focusing on foraging and growing dying materials; repurposing kitchen trimmings; making and using long-lasting dyes; and creating stitched projects.

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Subjects
Genres
Patterns
Published
Hudson, New York : Princeton Architectural Press 2019.
Language
English
Main Author
Abigail Booth (author)
Item Description
Includes index.
Physical Description
159 pages : color illustrations ; 25 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9781616898410
  • Introduction
  • Natural color
  • Dye plants & where to find them
  • A dyer's tools & workbench
  • Understanding & preparing fabric
  • Setting up a dye vat
  • Haberdashery & textile care
  • In the kitchen. A kitchen palette ; Hand-stitched coasters; Patchwork place mats
  • The dyer's garden. A dyer's harvest ; Growing plants form seed ; Harvest bag ; Gardener's smock ; Dyeing with woad & madder
  • Summer foraging. Shades of summer ; Dyer's apron ; Foraging bag
  • Autumn foraging. Tones of autumn ; Patchwork cushions ; Strip-pieced blanket ; Oak gall ink
  • List of dye plants.
Review by Booklist Review

Many people who work with fiber are drawn to the process of dyeing by hand, and if natural, readily-available ingredients can be used to make the dyes, even better. One might choose to grow particular plants in the garden or might forage (with permission) to source plants that can be positively identified. Fine artist Booth often uses natural dyes in her textile pieces, and here takes the reader through the entire process of dyeing with plants and food scraps. Eight sewing projects showcase ways to utilize hand-dyed fabric in household items such as coasters, bags, and cushions. As hand dyeing can create unique effects and as plant dyeing can result in sometimes unexpected shades (avocado skins and stones result in a surprisingly vibrant shade of pink), samples of the range of colors any dye ingredient can create are beautifully photographed alongside the plant ingredients (samples use 100% cotton fabric, other fibers may react differently). Though all the dyes are plant-based, the mordants (fixatives to help the dye adhere) used are alum and iron.--Anne Heidemann Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Booth, cofounder of the design studio Forest + Found, expounds on the benefits of using naturally dyed fabric in this easy-to-follow and richly illustrated how-to. Using natural dyes, she writes, encourages "a wonderful relationship with the outdoors." Some dyes originate from ordinary items--onions, avocados, and bark--while other materials are more unusual, such as the herbs weld, woad, and madder. Booth describes how, in her yard, she plants seeds to produce plants with desirable colors, and also forages, in summer and autumn, among trees and berry-producing plants, looking for acorns, oak galls, blackberries and elderberries, rose hips, nettles, dock, and bracken. In the kitchen, she repurposes skins and peelings in dye vats, and fashions dyed cloth into projects, from simple coasters to patchwork cushions. Along the way, readers will encounter a recipe for oak gall ink and a list of dye plants. Booth's advice isn't all horticultural; she also lists the tools of her trade--stainless steel pots, wooden spoons, safety gloves, and a source of heat in a ventilated space. Booth's scrupulousness takes the mystery out of the cloth-dyeing process and leaves crafters with a well-appointed resource to an appealing new pursuit. (Oct.)

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