As more and more individuals are discovering, dyeing your own fabric, yarns, and garments can yield gorgeous colors. This book identifies 36 plants that will yield beautiful natural shades and shows how easy it is to make the dyes. Pokeweed creates a vibrant magenta, while a range of soft lavender shades is created from elderberries; indigo yields a bright blue, and coyote brush creates stunning sunny yellows.

Harvesting Color explains where to find these plants in the wild (and for those that can be grown in your backyard, how to nurture them) and the best time and way to harvest them; maps show the range of each plant in the United States and Canada. For the dyeing itself, the book describes the simple equipment needed and provides a master dye recipe. Harvesting Color is organized seasonally; as an added bonus, each section contains a knitting project using wools colored with dyes from plants harvested during that time of the year. With breathtaking color photographs by Paige Green throughout, Harvesting Color is an essential guide to this growing field, for crafters and DIYers; for ecologists and botanists; and for artists, textile designers, and art students.

The Book Can Be Purchased At Your Local Bookstore as Of May 1st:

or Can Be Purchased Online:

Indie Bound

Powell's Books

Barnes and Noble

Amazon Books

Utilizing plant-based dyes for textile color is just one part of the multi-system solution we will need to employ to improve the health of the earth’s air, water, and soils.

The process of natural dye making is inherently regenerative—the raw materials are grown in gardens, restored lands, and collected from forgotten corners and patches of the landscape.

The plant materials are soaked, stirred, heated, and brewed and the remains of the process are composted to make new soils.

Creating botanical based dyes allows the artist to become involved in ecological restoration, and dye plant cultivation.

To source color, the natural dyer will inevitably find themselves tending wild landscapes, creating restored zones, and cultivating their dye plants of choice within their own gardens.