Hello Jennifer, green is nature's most elusive colour, which seems so incredible since it is abundant in the plants in many wonderful shades. Unfortunately the colour leaves the plant as soon as we dye with i and we get many shades of yellow, wonderful brilliant yellows and gold but alas no green. So the only way to obtain a nice leafy green is by overdyeing indigo (or woad) blue with something yellowish like weld (reseda luteola) for example.
Olive and brownish greens are a different matter, you can get them by dyeing yellow and then developing with iron. You have to be carefully adding the iron because too much will make the olive brown and the wool brittle. Concerning book recommendations: Jenny Dean (who already published Wild Colour) just published a new book, I can really reccomend: Jenny Dean Colours from Nature - A Dyer's Handbook self published Boundary Cottage, 172 Clifton Road Shefford, Bedfordshire SG17 5AH England ISBN 978-0-9530835-2-7 GBP 13,50 plus p&p You can get it by mailing her or by contactin P&M Woolcraft http://www.pmwoolcraft.co.uk/. If you can get her Wild Colour, lay your hand on it, it is yery good and has many pictures and step by step instructions, so it might be a bit easier for the novice dyer to understand. Another highly recommendable book is Jill Goodwin's A Dyer's Manual. It is not as modern in thought as Jenny's but very sound concerning dyeing with plant material with many very useful tips and hints. (Albeit she uses a tick too much mordant for my taste) All three books are no "cookbooks". I generally distrust those, because they arouse the allusion that you can control the outcome. Plant dyeing is always an experiment. And as with some experiments you can tell the outcome of some but there is always the element of surprise. Too many variables are influencing dyeing with plant material. How the plant was raised, if it got enough water or sun oder heat, the condition of your tab water (or well water or rain water) you dye with is important, slight changes in pH values can change a colour, which fibres you use etc pp. There are a lot of rule of the thumb and still it is always exciting to see the final result. That is what I love in dyeing with plants. (And the colour range which always seems to harmonize together even when faded totally unlike synthetic colours) If you don't want to start with a whole indigo vat, there are many ways to get indigo blue in smaller amounts and with less effort. For example, paradisefibres.net sell instant indigo which sounds rather promising. I am waiting for my delivery, then I can tell you more how well (and easy) it works. Or you might use a colour run remover vat, which is done rather quick, too. Try dyeing with plant material, it really is exciting and fun, just don't expect everything to be perfect or reproducable have fun experimenting Ulrike, spinner, dyer, weaver from Germany To stop mail temporarily mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: set nomail To restore send: set mail
