Customer Reviews

Dyes from American Native Plants: A Practical Guide

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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I happened across this book at my local spinning guild in Los Angeles. At first, it looked like the typical how-to book with limited new information, but as I leafed through it, I was immediately hooked by all the plants I DIDN'T know.

This book is definitely going to stay in the "most-used resources" part of my book collection. I'd recommend it for anyone interested in finding out more plants to toss in the dyepot! It's also good for those libraries in the central and eastern parts of the United States.

Which leads me to one of my quibbles with this book: it concentrates on the Eastern and Mid-West portions of the United States, and leaves out many dye plants common to the western states. Artimesia californica (California Sagebrush), all the Quercus species (California oaks) - these are the most notable for my area.

It should also be noted that there are many good dye plants that are NOT native to North America, such as Oxalis pes-caprae (Bermuda buttercup), and Cytisus scoparius (Scotch broom), and these are not listed in this book. It is, of course, the authors' prerogative to focus strictly on natives. However, dyers will need to use other resources to find the non-natives.

I do like that this book includes a description of the fermentation dye process, and the Munsell color notations of the colors given. However, in order to use this as a dye book, I'd like to see the colors and processes listed under each plant instead of in a separate chapter. I'm definitely going to make my own notations in this book -- which should tell you how impressed this librarian is!

Ruth Schooley

This book included a lot of plants that I had never considered in my dyeing process. Good practical advice.

This book is awesome and all ready looking well used. Can hardly wait to take it with me out for an adventure