:: July 2001 
Review
The Fabric & Yarn Dyer's Handbook
If reading about William Perkin inspires you to experiment with color on your own, CyberFibres recommends The Fabric & Yarn Dyer's Handbook, by Tracy Kendall. It is an attractively organized and colorfully presented compendium of information and recipes. Helpful for metrically-challenged fibreworkers, each dye recipe has a list of ingredients expressed in mls, grams, tsps, ozs, and cups. There is also a clear symbols system indicating which fabrics/fibres and dyes work best together, the level of difficulty, and the safety measures required for each recipe.
The handbook begins with an introduction covering the topics: types of fabric and yarn, synthetic and natural dyes, mordanting and fixing dyes, color use, and patterns. The second section explains a dozen dyeing techniques, including vat dyeing, screenprinting, and dyeing mixed yarns. The third section provides the recipes and the fibres best suited for each. Thoughtfully, author Kendall includes a glossary of dyeing chemicals. Appropriately, Ms. Kendall credits William Perkin with having produced the first synthetic dye, "a lavender color." (see July 2001 Feature)
An additional virtue of this dyer's handbook is that it has a covered spiral binding which permits the book to lie flat. This is very helpful when you are wearing plastic gloves and don't want to remove them in order to reopen a shut handbook