This inspiring article on How To Experiment With Plants To Create Beautiful Color Dyes helps you to envision that most fruits, vegetables and wood (bark, leaves and roots) can create a rainbow of color dyes all found in nature.

Here are some examples:

• Mountain Alder – Inner bark was used to make yellow dye. Outer bark was used to make a flaming red hair dye. Can be mixed with grindstone dust or black earth to make a black dye. Bark was used to wash and restore the brown color to old moccasins.

• Bloodroot – flower produces red dyes

• Rubber rabbitbrush

• Smooth sumac – Leaves can be collected as they fall in the autumn and used as a brown dye. A black and a red dye can be obtained from the fruit. A black dye is obtained from the leaves, bark, and roots. An orange or yellow dye is obtained from the roots harvested in spring. A light yellow dye is obtained from the pulp of the stems.

• Butternut (Juglans cinerea) -bark from this tree can make a brown dye and young roots to make a black dye. Using an iron mordant, brown dye can be changed to a charcoal or gray color.

• Rubus – Common names include raspberry, blackberry, blackberry, boysenberry all produce dyes.

• Yarrow (green, black)

• Honey Locust (yellow)

• Golden wild-indigo (green)

• Tall cinquefoil (black, green, orange, red)

• Pecan (brown)

• Indiangrass (brown, green)

• Western comandra (brown, yellow)

• Prairie Bluets (brown, yellow)

• Sassafras (black, green, purple, yellow)

• Eastern Cottonwood (black, brown, yellow)

• Plains Coreopsis (black, green, yellow, brown)

• Ozark chinkapin (black, yellow, brown)

• Sumac (yellow, green, brown, black)

• Chokecherry (red)

• Prairie Parsley (yellow, brown)

• Slippery Elm (brown, green, yellow)

• Black Willow (black, green, orange, yellow)

• Indian blanket (black, green, yellow)

• Hairy coneflower (brown, green, yellow, black)

• Red Mulberry (brown, yellow, green)

• Summer Grape (orange, yellow, black)

• Black Locust (black, green, yellow, brown)

• Butterfly milkweed (yellow)

• Texas Paintbrush (green, red, yellow)

• Basket flower (yellow)

• Sagebrush (yellow, gray)

• Stinging nettle (green)

• Goldenrod (yellow, brown)

• Iris (black)

• Canaigre Dock (yellow, green, brown)

• Prickly poppy (green, orange, yellow)

• Downy Phlox (brown, green, yellow)

• Northern Catalpa (brown, yellow)

• May-apple (brown, yellow)

• Sand Evening Primrose (green, orange, red, yellow)

  Click here to read How To Experiment With Plants To Create Beautiful Color Dyes:

  http://milkwood.net/2014/06/23/experiments-in-colour-diy-plant-dyes/