a nice stack of daydreams

I've been very disciplined about knitting from my stash for months and months now. But recently I caved in my commitment not to buy any books for a long while. I'd been daydreaming a lot lately about spinning and dyeing, especially natural plant dyeing.

Facing a housebound summer while I recover from surgery on my right foot, I decided to go ahead and get some new reading material to keep me company. I'll be taking the last three of my post-grad classes - all online since I won't be able to get out and about - but I can knock off the classwork in the mornings and still have the rest of the day to read and knit and watch movies on Netflix. There'll be no spinning on the wheel, but I can work on my spindling skills, too.

Here's part of the reading queue ~

Harvesting Color: How to Find Plants and Make Natural Dyes

Wild Color

The Handbook of Natural Plant Dyes

Eco Colour

The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook

Now, right at the top of the stack in the photo is a used copy of an out of print book called Colors: The Story of Dyes and Pigments and it packs centuries of history into a very small package. A few years ago I read a much longer book about the history of color by Victoria Finlay. The Finlay book has some illustrations but this little book is crammed with them. I'll have to see how the information compares between them.

I was a little sad when I opened the book to see that it was withdrawn from circulation and sold to benefit the branch libraries of the New York City Public Library, my library system. It had been in the collection of the Port Richmond branch on Staten Island. Maybe if it had been in a different branch it might have attracted more attention. Its cover alone is very eye-catching.

I'm in no position to be set up a dye kitchen. With four adults in one apartment, there just isn't the space. But like I said, it's daydreaming I've been doing. I'll just be a much more well-informed daydreamer after this summer's reading, and I can always plan ahead for the day when I will have the chance to put my new knowledge into practice.

(6/17/2011) edited to add: I'm about halfway through the small book on dyes and pigments. Finlay's book goes into much more detail about the colors and how they were developed, as well as their significance, but the small book is far better for illustrations. In fact, Finlay lists this book in her bibliography. I'm glad to have both.