Eco Colour: Botanical Dyes for Beautiful Textiles [Hardcover]

India Flint (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 14, 2010

The essence of plants bursts forth in magnificent hues and surprising palettes. Using dyes of the leaves, roots, and flowers to color your cloth and yarn can be an amazing journey into botanical alchemy. In Eco Colour, artistic dyer and colorist India Flint teaches you how to cull and use this gentle and ecologically sustainable alternative to synthetic dyes.

India explores the fascinating and infinitely variable world of plant color using a wide variety of techniques and recipes. From whole-dyed cloth and applied color to prints and layered dye techniques, India describes only ecologically sustainable plant-dye methods. She uses renewable resources and shows how to do the least possible harm to the dyer, the end user of the object, and the environment. Recipes include a number of entirely new processes developed by India, as well as guidelines for plant collection, directions for the distillation of nontoxic mordants, and methodologies for applying plant dyes.

Eco Colour inspires both the home dyer and textile professional seeking to extend their skills using India’s successful methods.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* One of the most elegantly designed crafts books to debut this year, with a sophisticated layout and color photographs that capture well the ecological sensitivities of the artist. Though the art of dyeing has long been associated with natural materials, South Australian first-time author (and creator of hand-made “slow” fashion) Flint maximizes the use of renewable resources while minimizing most harmful footprints. On occasion, she goes to extremes, justifying, for instance, the use of wood to heat boiling-dye waters. Yet there’s much valuable information on every page, in every illustration, throughout each chapter; the author’s very careful orientation to the subject, beginning with collecting plants and finishing with special effects and fabric care and feeding, educates and energizes. Notes about history and practical applications (say, the production of indigo and the creation of natural blues through woad plants) are balanced with charts of traditional dye materials and specific details about processing, including plant oddities such as eucalyptus and St. John’s wort, different effects froma range of techniques (for instance, hapa-zome, or beating color into cloth, as well as the familiar resist )and mordants (the stuff that fixes or makes color permanent). Urban apartment dwellers might be a bit challenged by the philosophy and processes; and a few materials indigenous to Australia are unavailable to those on other continents. Nonetheless, an excellent source. --Barbara Jacobs

Review

“If you've ever worried about the effect dyeing fabric has on the earth, Eco Colour by India Flint will teach you how to use botanical dyes to create beautiful textiles.” - Cutoutandkeep.net

“A beautifully presented book…if you are interested in botanical dyes, this is a definite must read.” - Shuttle, Spindle & Dyepot

“Slow dyes, like slow foods, require time and effort, but can generate extraordinary results. This book follows that same philosophy. If you take the time to delve deeply and absorb the wealth of information offered, you will find instruction and inspiration in abundance.” – Surface Design Journal

“This book is a significant and inspirational addition to the literature on natural dyeing and one which must be read by anyone interested in the topic.” - Pam Borchardt, member of the Natural Dye Group, Plant Craft Cottage

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Interweave Press (September 14, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596683309
• ISBN-13: 978-1596683303
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 9.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #58,787 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #9 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Crafts & Hobbies > Needlecrafts & Textile Crafts > Dye
  • #38 in Books > Arts & Photography > Decorative Arts & Design > Textile & Costume

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Ecological Delights October 20, 2010

By C. Reed

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book has made me take a second look at botanical dyes. This is not a recipe book. Ms. Flint opens up your eyes to all of the dye stuffs in your neighborhood. Like the slow food movement, she advises getting dyestuff close to home. She shares basic principals for getting the color out of common plants. She describes ways to fix color to silk, wool and cellulose fabrics and spinning fibers. She cuts out the nasty metallic salts as mordants by adding time and not always using heat. Her plants and dyes need to cure or age with the cloth. What that means is that a few minutes are spent applying the color and then you set the cloth aside for days or even months before you finish the process. This could work quite well in my busy life. Her philosophy is captured in one of her tips about hapazome, beating plants on cloth to color them. This technique is not as colorfast as the other techniques. But she tells us to embrace this. Decorate a garment in the spring with those flowers and leaves. As the design fades, add to it with summer blossoms and refresh the fabric again in the fall for an ever-changing fabric.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful book, lots of info June 11, 2011

By M. Fregia

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book has a wealth of gorgeous photography and tons of information on coloring with botanicals. If I stopped there, it would get 5 stars.

The main drawback is that the book's organization is awkward, requiring much study and flipping around to figure out how best to use the botanicals at your disposal. To be fair, much of the information is complicated, making it hard to organize; and there is a good index to help you find that stray sentence you need. If you are willing to plow through and experiment, Eco Colour is a great foundation and inspiration. There are actually a couple "recipes" for quick and easy eco-prints, but patience is still required (the author advises waiting a week to open that lovely bundle of now-rosy silk I tinted with red onion skins!) When you try the flower pounding, please do take the author's advice to make a trial, even if you have limited plant material to work with! :-)

One thing the reader should not miss is that the author admitted drawing during chemistry class! She mentions early in the book the reliable color results that can be obtained using certain chemicals, without the specific caution that these are quite toxic, cautions she does, however, repeat concerning plants that are poisonous, etc. (Please be sure to look up an MSDS if you are tempted to order any chrome salts, etc.)

One of the most helpful things to me was the extensive information on the friendlier mordants, which ones are useful on which types of fiber, and how various ones may affect the final colors you will achieve. We benefit also from little tricks she has learned, such as freezing certain flowers or berries to extract the most color. (Spent blossoms are in the freezer now and will be my next project.) I was fascinated with her ingenuity in figuring out how to dye "on the road" with botanicals encountered while traveling.

While chemical dyes (such as Procion MX) are safe, much easier, more predictable, wash- and light-fast, there is a definite allure to trying to capture the beauty of the plants around us to color our clothing and other fabrics, even if it is fleeting. Eco Colour is a great book for your adventure.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful and Useful Book August 20, 2009

By Nancy Condon

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book by India Flint is a must have for people interested in natural dyeing or even just wanting to learn about color in the natural world. Ms. Flint presents low cost, simple ways to explore the color all around us.