The many shades of green in the countryside right now are sometimes breath taking. There are points along our road where I slow the car down just to take them all in. As all natural-dyers will know, green is a notoriously elusive colour to obtain. The gorgeous baby-greens of these freshly opened beech leaves will dye wool from shades of yellow to golden, depending on the mordant. That could be disappointing, although I love the colours from beech leaves. But as it is now late May, the stinging nettles are at their peak. They are just high enough off the ground for me to pick the tender tops without endangering my arms, and they are full of dye. Over the Winter, I used up all my stock of gr