Customer Reviews

Eco Colour: Botanical Dyes for Beautiful Textiles

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

Impressed with the cover I ordered Eco Colour at Amazon. Australia based India Flint is obviously a gifted textile artist and colorist. This is a lushly beautiful book you can spend hours pouring through, but it is also a practical guide to natural dye for fabric, wool yarn and sliver with an emphasis on safety.

I agree with what all the reviewers have said about the presentation of these crafts. The concepts behind the book as well are what intrigued me to want to purchase this title. The colors that are actually accomplished and the products themselves are severely disappointing. Although initially interesting, page after page after page begins to look like an expose of the Shroud of Turin. Or coffee stains that refuse to wash out of your favorite blouse. Or your pants knees after gardening. I so wanted to love this book. Back to the dyepot.....

This beautifully presented book is more than inspiring, it is thorough and full of gorgeous photography. India Flint has given us much to explore and discover about botanical dyeing. Right away the colors of nature become exciting possibilities for direct application into our art through dyeing. I can't wait to get started.

This book is so informative and inspiring I can barely stand it. If you have interest in natural dyeing, just get it!!!

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.

I've been working with dyeing silk scarves with plant materials, vinegar and metal wire. But this book takes things to a different level that I was hoping to find. I read an article about India Flint in Fiber Arts magazine and then went hunting for this book online. I have yet to try experimenting with her methods, since we're still in the throes of winter, but I love the results pictured in this book. It's a beautiful book that has a very scientific feel, with charts of plants, their scientific and common names, what parts to use for dyeing, and what color will result. But it also has anecdotal information that's fascinating. The author has shared a lot here. The one thing that concerns me is her statement at the beginning of the book, which is that some colors will fade over time. Since I sell my products, I hate to tell a customer that the beautiful colors they're buying may fade. But I'm looking forward to see what botanical alchemy I can come up with while using this book as a guide.

As a beginner to natural plant dyeing, I was interested in this book. It is beautiful and there are many ideas here. It is not really set up for the beginner to get step by step instructions however. I wound upo buying another book [THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO NATURAL DYEING by Eva Lambert and Tracy Kendall] for that purpose, so I can use them in tandem comfortably.

Incredible book, beautiful to hold and page through and extremely timely regarding environmentally friendly dye methods. My only disappointment was the author's stand that no actual 'recipes' are possible as the world is full of indigenous plants-I see her point, but still liked the idea of how much of what. I did learn a lot more re: receptacles and chemical interaction. I got some great color with my iron kettle and rhubarb leaves!

My friend had a copy of this book and it intrigued me enough that I had to order a copy for myself. It's a visually beautiful book - from the t"hand friendly' feel of the cover to the pages that are designed as eye candy.

India Flint's techniques are easy and unique.The book is replete with the information you need about a variety of plants and mordants. All of the information that you need to get started are right there in the pages of the. Since she is Australian the the plants described are indigenous to that area - but many are easy to find in North America as well. The techniques described will work with any plant matter and the magic is in the trying and experimenting.

I'm not sure that I could say that this is "the only book you'll ever need" for natural dyeing - but is the only book you need for her "bundling" technique. I'm planning to try some of the techniques(adjusted a bit perhaps) on heavy watercolor paper. This book is an excellent addition to the library for any natural dye fan - or for any textile surface designer or admirer. I'm happy that I splurged and bought it !