Prepared to Dye

Prepared to Dye by Gene Shepherd is supposed to be a book on making your own dyes and dye baths for dying different media.

0 out of 10 stars.  Most of this book is about using commercial dyes on wool yarn and sheets of wool.  There is a very small section at the end on dying nylon, but the author tells the reader early on that these techniques will not produce the same results on any other fabric.  Unless you’re dying wool and plan on using the exact same commercial dyes as the author, this book is worthless.

I also found that a lot of the techniques were the same thing over and over again.  Drop the wool in a bath, add dye, add more dye, twist this way, remove from bath, dry.  There are just so many ways to do the same thing.  The art projects shown in the photos did not match the products dyed in that section, so I’m not even sure why they were there.

There are no instructions on making your own dyes.  None at all.

I am still on the lookout for a great book on dying cotton rag paper and cotton cloth for my art projects using homemade dyes made from natural products like tea and plants.  🙁