Best fabric dyeing books according to redditors
We found 13 Reddit comments discussing the best fabric dyeing books. We ranked the 11 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
2. Spinning and Dyeing Yarn: The Home Spinners Guide to Creating Traditional and Art Yarns
2 mentions
Hi, I’m not writing to be snarky but many of the dyestuffs you are using are quite fugitive, even with proper mordants. Pokeberry is a stain and will fade quite quickly. Turmeric also fades, sumac, onion skins,, etc.
Stick to indigo, madder, cochineal, logwood, sandalwood, black walnut...and yep the lichens are really interesting. A very excellent book is :
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Craft-Natural-Dyeing-Traditional/dp/0870496700. Jim is dead now but this book is a dyeing bible.
If you aren’t going to sell these it’s great fun trying lots of different plant materials, but if they are for sale it’s best to stick to the tried and true dyes. Ive been a natural dyer for forty years and sold professionally for a lot of those years, just trying to save you some grief😊
This highly recommended book is a great place to start: https://fungi.com/products/mushrooms-for-dyes-paper-pigments-myco-stix
It's a little pricy but you might be able to get it for less somewhere else. Still, it's a great book for getting started and includes more ideas than just dyes.
This book is a little cheaper, but has less focus on mushrooms and instead has recipes for all sorts of dye mediums: https://www.amazon.com/Craft-Dyer-Colour-Plants-Lichens/dp/0486276066/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1539399759&sr=8-1&keywords=craft+of+the+dyer
There may be better sources out there, but I have both of these and I would recommend either or both.
This web site has some cool information as well: http://mycopigments.com/
Good luck! :)
EDIT: One other thing I thought to mention - Once I started learning about this, I experimented with any local mushrooms I could get my hands on. It was through this process that I discovered that the pine spike (chroogomphus vinicolor) made a nice pink color. Anyway, try any mushroom that you can find and keep notes. You might waste some mordant, but you'll learn a lot. Have fun!
I've taken a few textile art courses at my university, and have a decent amount of experience with natural dying. I can recommend a couple of books that cover the whole process pretty well, if you'd like. One that I own that I can really recommend is "The Art and Craft of Natural Dyeing: Traditional Recipes for Modern Use", by J. N. Liles. It's a good central resource.
As far as what is available in your particular area, look for websites about natural dye plants and their ranges. There are a ton of plants that will make some kind of color, but the number of materials that really stand the test of time (and sunlight) narrows it down a bit. Experimentation can be fun. Lots of bark and leaves make decent yellow/brown dyes. Walnut hulls make an excellent range of browns/blacks. Some of the plants that you'd think would make a good dye don't make a lasting color, like most berries. They may stain, but will quickly fade in the sunlight. Generally speaking, the yellows, oranges, browns, and purples are the easiest colors to make. Good strong reds and blues are harder to get.
The general process is to scour, mordant, dye, and finish the material. Scouring is basically boiling or soaking the fiber in a hot detergent solution to get rid of all the oils and waxes that naturally occur in cotton, wool, silk, etc. It's really important to the process, since if there's crud on the fiber, it won't take color, or will take it in unevenly. That book I mentioned has good directions for each type of fiber, but you can find that information floating around the internet.
Mordanting is a process of soaking the fiber in a mineral solution that helps bind the colorant bind to the fiber at the molecular level. There are lots of kinds of mordants, and the type you use affects the color. More experimentation is in order! The most common is alum, either potassium alum or aluminum sulfate. It's the safest to handle (although you should really exercise general caution when dealing with any chemicals). Other ones are tannin (also safe to handle), copper sulfate, iron sulfates, chrome-alum (nasty stuff) , and stannic/stannous chlorides. Copper sulfates tend to make dyes a little bluer or greener, iron sulfates make colors duller and darker. If you use a mordant, make sure you know the health hazards and take the appropriate cautions (rubber gloves when stirring/mixing, dust mask when measuring powders, etc).
And dyeing! Like you said, there are tons of plants that impart colors, so try a bunch. Doing small samples will help a lot. They keep your investment low, and let you know if something just isn't going to work out.
I could go on and on, but I think it comes down to this: You can get really involved in the science of it, or in the tradition of it, or you can casually explore and just play around with it. For instance, with something like indigo dyeing, which is just about the only lightfast (doesn't fade in light) and vibrant blue natural dye out there. My teacher has spent 20+ years of his life studying indigo dyeing, and he is still learning new things. People have and continue to dedicated lifetimes to this stuff. Indigo is an extreme example, but you get the idea. It's also just really fun to do. Go get some bark, or some walnuts, or buy some natural dyes online.
TL;DR Scour, Mordant, Dye. You can get as involved in the science as you want. Good results come from gradual and even processes. Attention to detail pays off! Have fun.
For yarn, Knit Picks Wool of the Andes is probably the cheap starting option. I really like bare Felici. Superwash wool tends to suck up dye faster than non-superwash, so it can be a little easier to work with (plus, harder to felt!).
Be sure to check out the safety thread on the sidebar - you should have eye protection, a mask, and gloves.
I really like the book Hand Dyeing Yarn and Fleece - it's a great beginner's reference for dye techniques, and I use it for color inspiration if I'm in a rut.
Some other things I've found useful (as an experienced-ish hobby dyer):
I don't have any strong opinions on dyes - check out Paula Burch's website (linked on the sidebar) to get an idea of the difference in the dyes. Her site can be a pain to navigate, but it's a wealth of information. I primarily use Lanaset/Sabraset dyes (same dyes, name just depends on the retailer). They generally have the best ratings for colorfastness, but they're supposedly a little more finicky than some of the other dyes. I haven't had any trouble with them, but I don't have enough experience with other dye brands to really compare them. I prioritized purchasing dyes that are "pure" rather than a mix of multiple colors, per information on Paula's site.
I've purchased my dyes from Pro Chemical & Dye. Their starter kits would be my recommendation; that's how I got started. Dharma Trading is the other big dye retailer that I'm aware of.
Possibly helpful note: I mix my dye stock to 1%, or 1g of dye in 100g/100ml of water. For reasonably saturated colors, you'll usually use 1% "depth of shade", which is the ratio of dye to yarn/fiber. So, if you have 100g of yarn and want 1% depth of shade, you'd use 1g of dye - or, in the case of pre-mixed 1% dye stocks, 100ml of your dye stock (which I measure with the oral syringes). Since you use so little dye per 100g of yarn, it means that the 10g of each dye color in the starter kits can go a LONG way!
According to this it is from this book
It looks like you are applying enough dye, it just isn't going where you need it. If you aren't getting the dye penetration you want, the cause is going to be either your dye is too thick or the material is bound too tightly.
I doubt it's the dye mixture, but.... Do you add sodium alginate? I like a little bit so the dye doesn't stray too far from where I put it, but too much and you can end up with something closer to a gel that won't spread far enough into the material. If you aren't using a thickener, maybe your dye powder to water ratio is too high? You could try ice dyeing to see if the problem persists, or if it solves the issue you encounter when mixing it into liquid form.
My guess is that you have too much material or it is tied too tightly. Whenever I've done a mandala it is on one side of the shirt only. The back gets a different design because if the shirt is folded all together there is too much material for the dye to get through it all. It could also be that you have tied too tightly. The rubber band/string/sinew resistance needs be strong enough to prevent the colors from running all over each other, yet allow sufficient penetration to reach all the material.
I'll qualify all of this by saying I'm experienced but not an expert. I learned a lot from the How To Tie Dye Stars book, which is THE guide to the mandala style. Crap! Looks like it has been discontinued on Dharma. Amazon has it.
Edit to add: I think the shirt is still really cool!
If she's just getting into it, does she have an electric bobbin winder? I happened to get mine second hand on the cheap, and it's a life-saver, really. They're sort of expensive, I mean I think a new one from schacht is nearish to $300, but there are a few on eBay for about $150. That aside, a warping mill is another item that I got off of craigslist for dumb-cheap that I'll never regret having, it's great for longer warps and like the bobbin winder is easier on my arms & wrists. I'm pathetic.
Other stuff that's neat is seeing what reeds she has for her loom-- they're again, something that people have and use but having a few more options doesn't hurt. There are generally numbers on the end of them marked 4/8/12, etc, and they have to do with the density of the yarn in your warp.
Aside from those types of gifts, books that are good and I enjoy for reference are:
The Big Book of Weaving - I like this one because it's very simple in it's pattern suggestions, haha.
The Weaver's Companion - This was actually my first weaving book. It's SO CUTE. It's legit a coil bound book that is probably 4x6 inches, and it has all these little numbers and reference guides to glance at. I keep it in my bench because it's just handy to have.
& just for fun: Woven Shibori - I like woven shibori a lot. It's really fun and is a sort of mix of weaving and tie-die. Shibori is a Japanese technique that involves a lot of intricate knots on already-woven fabric, woven shibori calls for a secondary shuttle. The yarn on that secondary shuttle is used for "pattern picks"; when the fabric is off the loom, you use those pattern strings to fold the fabric very tightly, then you essentially dip it into a dye bath. It's all very fussy but depending on where she is, she might be itching to explore a new technique, and what's nice is that she can play with it no matter what type of floor loom she has. B)
I live near-ish to Webs, which is the storefront for yarn.com; they have a TON of stuff available online and I recommend poking through their weaving section if you haven't already. :D
I've heard a lot of good things about this book. I've not read it so I can't vouch.
Ashley Martineau
Spinning and Dyeing Yarn: The Home Spinners Guide to Creating Traditional and Art Yarns
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0764166077/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_NDtRAb3Q68HDS
Harvest them and allow them to dry down in a cool dark place, then store in a dark cool place. It should keep for a long while. You want to keep it away from light, moisture and heat - anything that could degrade the pigments.
As with all natural dyes, the hue and colorfastness of the resulting color comes primarily from 1) the type of fiber you are dyeing (wool, silk, alpaca, etc), and 2) how you mordant the fiber (the pH and the type of mordant you use). You want something to be colorfast so that it doesn't fade or degrade after washing or exposure to light.
Check this post out (towards bottom) for more examples of what it looks like on different fibers. I think she used alum as a mordant.
If you're interested in learning more about dyeing with mushrooms this is a good resource. I have and love this book also. There are also oooodles of books/resources out there for dyeing with lichens and plants that have good tips.
I just ordered my SO this awesome shirt and onesie combo, an epic coloring book, something to help if he's feeling overwhelmed, a book for bedtime, and a shirt to help bring out his inner nerd as a late father's day/early baby day present~ get your hubby something fun that matches his personality, there's plenty of awesome things on amazon for dads-to-be for every kind of dad out there. You just have to look :3
There are a few books on using natural dyes. I'd start there.
Not sure if she's into tablet weaving, but this is a pretty good resource.
Lots of patterns in here that are applicable to not only card weaving but other weaving as well. This one is huge in my circle, has a bit of culture, lots of patterns, and has German text, too! It mostly focuses on weaving in Tibet, Burma, and Tunisia, but is pretty applicable to medieval styles, too.
I don't do inkle weaving, but this one got my mom started and it's been tremendous help. I think this one's a safe bet too- even if she doesn't already do inkle loom weaving, the material cost to start is pretty low! Lots and lots of patterns in here.
I personally don't own this one but I think she might be very interested in getting into dyeing. It's pretty addicting and adds a whole new dimension when you can say you dyed the materials yourself! There's also a decent chance she doesn't have this one already.
Hopefully one of these will work for you; regardless, I'm sure she'll love whatever you get her!
Shibori is exactly what I was going to recommend. It's a lot of fun, and you can make a lot of the techniques look super chic.
I used to borrow this book from the library, natural dying is great for realising the connection we forge with the fabric and garment when dying it ourselves.