The Wild Dyer: A Maker's Guide to Natural Dyes with Projects to Create and Stitch

by Abigail Booth

Overview

A complete illustrated guide to natural dyeing, for beginners and veteran dyers seeking to expand their knowledge of this popular craft—including foraging, simple stitch techniques, and delightful, achievable projects.

"Beautifully photographed, chock full of helpful information, and includes instructions not only for dye processes but also beautiful and utilitarian sewing projects, like aprons, bags and placemats, that utilize your newly dyed fabric." —The Maine Organic Farmer and Gardener
  
From London-based Forest + Found studio co-founder Abigail Booth, The Wild Dyer offers a deep dive into natural dyes—colors and pigments that are derived from plants and minerals. Nature’s bounty, like onion and avocado skins, chamomile and birch bark, and nettles and acorns can produce lovely, ethereal colors and effects. Here, Booth demystifies the eco-conscious art and craft of natural dyeing, comprehensively covering topics such as:

• Foraging and growing dying plants from seed
• Repurposing kitchen trimmings
• Making and using long-lasting dyes
• Workspace setup and equipment
• Fabric choices and care
• Creating stitched projects

Vibrant color photos accompany the text throughout, and easy-to-follow instructions illustrate how to make eight exquisite household items, from a drawstring bag to a gardener's smock to a reversible patchwork blanket and more. A must-have for natural dying enthusiasts, this guidebook also makes an outstanding gift for crafters and textile artists, including quilters, knitters, and weavers, inspired by the unique beauty and subtlety of natural dyes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781616898410
Publisher:	Chronicle Books
Publication date:	10/01/2019
Pages:	160
Sales rank:	616,851
Product dimensions:	7.60(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Abigail Booth is the London-based cofounder of the studio collective Forest + Found. Working across textiles, drawing, and painting, she exhibits her art throughout the world.

Editorial Reviews

08/19/2019

Booth, cofounder of the design studio Forest + Found, expounds on the benefits of using naturally dyed fabric in this easy-to-follow and richly illustrated how-to. Using natural dyes, she writes, encourages “a wonderful relationship with the outdoors.” Some dyes originate from ordinary items—onions, avocados, and bark—while other materials are more unusual, such as the herbs weld, woad, and madder. Booth describes how, in her yard, she plants seeds to produce plants with desirable colors, and also forages, in summer and autumn, among trees and berry-producing plants, looking for acorns, oak galls, blackberries and elderberries, rose hips, nettles, dock, and bracken. In the kitchen, she repurposes skins and peelings in dye vats, and fashions dyed cloth into projects, from simple coasters to patchwork cushions. Along the way, readers will encounter a recipe for oak gall ink and a list of dye plants. Booth’s advice isn’t all horticultural; she also lists the tools of her trade—stainless steel pots, wooden spoons, safety gloves, and a source of heat in a ventilated space. Booth’s scrupulousness takes the mystery out of the cloth-dyeing process and leaves crafters with a well-appointed resource to an appealing new pursuit. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"Booth expounds on the benefits of using naturally dyed fabric in this easy-to-follow and richly illustrated how-to. Using natural dyes, she writes, encourages “a wonderful relationship with the outdoors.” Booth’s scrupulousness takes the mystery out of the cloth-dyeing process and leaves crafters with a well-appointed resource to an appealing new pursuit."
- Publishers Weekly

"Fine artist Booth often uses natural dyes in her textile pieces, and here takes the reader through the entire process of dyeing with plants and food scraps. Eight sewing projects showcase ways to utilize hand-dyed fabric in household items such as coasters, bags, and cushions. As hand dyeing can create unique effects and as plant dyeing can result in sometimes unexpected shades (avocado skins and stones result in a surprisingly vibrant shade of pink), samples of the range of colors any dye ingredient can create are beautifully photographed alongside the plant ingredients."
- Booklist

“Take a journey with Abigail Booth as she teaches you the foundations of natural dyeing and guides you through simple steps to create unique projects. Unlock the key to colour with the section on des, finding sources in unusual places."
- LandLove

"In this book, [Abigail Booth] clearly outlines natural dye techniques and simple stitches. Coffee grounds, avocado stones, onion skins and nettles all harbour the potential to produce vividly coloured dyes. Follow her instructions to make a gardener's smock dyed with rudbeckia flowers or a pretty pink blanket from willow leaves and birch bark. Reading Abigail's book is like taking a pleasing step back in time."
- House Garden

"[Abigail Booth] hopes to share her excitement about the freedom of natural dyeing processes in her new book, The Wild Dyer, which follows the same course as Abigail's own journey - starting in the kitchen, before taking you outside to show you what you can forage and what you can grow yourself. Woven throughout are beautiful sewing projects; a foraging bag, a gardener's smock, a dyer's apron."
- The Sunday Telegraph (UK)

"[The Wild Dyer] is beautifully photographed, chock full of helpful information, and includes instructions not only for dye processes but also beautiful and utilitarian sewing projects, like aprons, bags and placemats, that utilize your newly dyed fabric. "
– The Maine Organic Farmer and Gardener

From the Publisher