I love natural dyes too Pokey. I think it is a good idea for someone new to natural dyes to start with a good book like the one you suggest on how to use them. It really helps to start with some recipes to follow to make sure you have success and are happy with the time you have invested in getting the dye from seed to your cloth.

When you get to the experimenting stage, keep a notebook with details about the plant used, when harvested, what parts of the plant used, and a snip of the fabric with notes about what mordants etc yielded what color. The only frustrating thing that can happen is to find out that a dye color is fugitive and fades quickly with repeated washings or sunlight. Again, this is why it is great to start out with a good book!

I used cooked beets water once on natural colored wool. Was hoping for a light pink, but it turned yellow. Haven't tried it since.

Have you seen India Flint's work? Will blow your mind. The world is her garden. She's written a book that is wonderful as well. http://www.indiaflint.com/

Oh to live in a gardening zone in which one could actually grow <i>all</i> those lovely plants in one plot!

A couple of years ago out of the blue our yard started growing a grape vine next to a barred window in our basement.  They are tiny and don't taste very good so at the end of the season last year I took them, a piece of white pima cotton and got busy......it was fantastic!!!  the juice made a beautiful blue and the skins made a wonderful magenta while the stems made a sienna color.  

I know what you meant when you wrote "eco-friendly process that avoids using chemicals" but one of my pet peeves is the incorrect notion that "chemicals" are bad guys.  Natural dyes ARE chemicals; in fact water and air are chemicals.  A "chemical" is not necessarily bad or good in every circumstance!  Life wouldn't exist without chemicals, and life would certainly be much harder without synthetic chemicals (deodorant, makeup, medicines, etc).

I am very inerested if dying fabric and using what nature gives us sounds even better. Is the book listed above a good beginning point?

see my blog post on dyeing with purple morning glories...

grannygoodstuff.blogspot.com/.../eq7-practice-dyeing-to-meet-you-morning.html

Hi,

You do also need to be aware of the toxicity of some mordants. India Knight has sound advice on this.

Be aware, but enjoy!!

Jennie

As a weaver of nearly 40 years, I spent the Bicentennial era dyeing all my rug wool with the plants early settlers used....and then some. A beautiful rainbow of golds, greens, yellows and browns. Only cochineal (ground-up bug from the Southwest used by Native Americans) creates a natural red. Though madder root gives a good pinky red. Blues come from the indigo plant in a reverse process---the dyebath is clear, but when the wool is pulled out and exposed to air, it turns blue!

I used a mordant to make the wool colorfast; usually it was alum. Only soaked black walnut hulls are so intensely brown that the dyebath does not need a mordant.

Add iron---a bunch of old nails will do---to "sadden" or make the color grayish.

I have used queen anne's lace, onion skins, tomato vines. But some  plants will only STAIN the fiber, not color it. For example, grapes and blueberries stain the wool; they don't create a molecular bond.

Martha

Many years ago I did a year-long dye study with a group of ladies from The Seattle Weavers' Guild.  I had lots of fun and learnd a lot as well!  Now that I've retired, one of the plants I'd love to experiment with some more is Lichen.  We have a lot of woods on our property and lots of lichen everywhere.  It's always fun to see what colors can come from the various types.  The most important thing I learnd from our study group is to take really good, detailed notes at every step of the process!  I hate it when I find a color I love and haven't written down "recipe" and the process.

Onions make a dark yellow. Strawberries a light red pink. We made natural dyed T Shirts with a summer camp.