Natural Dyeing for Beginners: Practical Guide to Plant-based Dyes, Mordants, and Color From Your Garden and Kitchen

Natural dyeing is chemistry, not craft mysticism. Once you understand why mordants work — how alum forms a molecular bridge between plant pigment and fiber — you stop following recipes blindly and start predicting color. Fern Hollister has grown her own dye garden for eleven years and dyed enough failed skeins to know what the other books omit. In Natural Dyeing for Beginners, she gives you the technical foundation first — mordant ratios, WOF percentages, temperature protocols, fiber-specific differences — then builds on it with fifteen tested recipes using specific quantities and temperatures. Full coverage of protein vs cellulose fiber preparation, garden and kitchen dye plants, a complete indigo chapter, color theory for dyers, eco-printing, and honest lightfastness ratings so you know which colors last centuries and which fade in weeks. For spinners, weavers, knitters, and gardeners who already work with fiber and want to color it with plants.