A Garden to Dye For

 A Garden to Dye For, by Chris McLaughlin (St. Lynn’s Press, Pittsburgh, 2014) is a resource for the home dyer, gardener, or crafter. McLaughlin brings all these domains together in this gem of a book. Her focus is to provide simple recipes that make dyeing accessible to gardeners and crafters, and not complex, scientific formulas for the advanced dyer. The book includes beautiful photographs, lots of ideas, and information about flowers, plants, and herbs that yield an amazing rainbow of colors. 

The Introduction and Chapter One provide an overview of dyeing terms and concepts that is useful for both new and seasoned dyers. Chapter Two is about tooling up - fiber, equipment, mordant, extracting color, and easy dye projects to get started. Chapters Three - Six describe plant color sources from flowers in your garden, vegetables and fruits, herbs, spices, and foraged material from nature. The descriptions for each plant include a "Where the Color Is" section (very useful, because sometimes the color source is unexpected). Chapter Seven provides information about planning and planting a dye garden. The back matter includes a plant index; sources for fiber, textiles, dyes, mordants, and dye plants; online information sources; and books.

This book promotes dyeing as an adventure. Experimentation and curiosity are encouraged. McLaughlin is a California gardener and dyer, and I appreciate that she includes plants that can be foraged locally, such as coyote bush, toyon, lichen, blackberry, eucalyptus, juniper, oak, and more. Kitchen waste, such as avocado skins/pits, tea bags, coffee grounds and onion skins are dye sources; as are marigold, dahlia, and calendula from the flower garden. She has inspired me to try dyeing wool yarn, a protein-based fiber (my sister has also encouraged me to try this). Up until now I've only dyed plant-based fiber. Other fun projects include eco-printing, Easter egg dyeing, and dyeing home made play dough. I highly recommend this book, whether you're just starting out or are an experienced dyer. If your interests spill over into multiple domains (dyeing, gardening, and crafting) all the more!