Natural Color: Vibrant Plant Dye Projects for Your Home and Wardrobe is written by Sasha Duerr, an artist and professor at the California College of the Arts. It is published by Watson-Guptill Publications in hardcover form and retails in the US for $30 and Canada for $40.

First, I have to begin by saying that this is such a “pretty” book. The layout and photographs are top notch. Plus, while the print text isn’t huge, it is nice to see a book that I can easily read the text without sitting under a massive overhead light. They weren’t stingy with the ink for a change, which is see much too often in books lately.

Now for the meat of the book, which focuses on using plants to die fiber for make-it type projects, really interesting, though I’m not sure how many people would be up for doing all this work. Not that it wouldn’t be fun work, but there is a lot to it. And the book is very thorough in covering the information. It reads a lot like an encyclopedia. There’s information on plants and the seasons they are available. This is followed by details about the type of colors you can dye with and their pros and cons. Then there are recipes for dying items like bedding, bags, and clothing. A short techniques section in the back of the book demonstrates four different dye techniques.

The beginning of the book explains how to set yourself up to make the dye and also collect the materials and process them. A list of tools and equipment is included. None of those listed where super expensive or difficult to find. It was a pretty long list, so you would need a lot to do this and a good space to attempt it, however.

Anyone who has ever thought about dying fiber, from textiles to yarn, would find this book immensely helpful. It is packed full of information. The casual reader might find it overwhelming, but I think it would become a useful reference book for anyone interested in fiber arts as well.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.