Greetings.
I am a man in a suit who has fallen into the world of Minecraft.
Last time, I cured a zombie villager in an igloo basement.
Now I am back in the castle town to build a dye shop. The wool collection machine from Episode 57 supplies white wool; I would like to give it some color. First, I need dye ingredients.
Gathering flowers, cocoa and cactus for dyes
Lilacs grow beneath the trees on the northwestern hill. These tall magenta flowers will become dye, so I pick a few to take home.
I also gather dandelions, poppies and cornflowers in the fields, and azure bluets south of the greenhouse. Today, familiar flowers look like little collections of color.
Across the great bridge, cocoa pods grow on a tree in the wild jungle. These beans, rather than cocoa from the town garden, supply the brown. Finding colors takes me beyond the flower patch.
I change into my elytra and fly southeast toward the desert. For this trip, I am making green by smelting cactus. Preparing a dye shop has somehow become an airborne errand!
A desert appears beside the sea. Blue water and pale sandy slopes make a bright view as I descend and look for cactus.
There it is! One cactus even has a pink flower on top. I do not manage to bring the flower home, but I collect cactus and make pink later by mixing red and white.
Back in town, green dye collects in the furnace output as the cactus smelts. The fuel is lava collected at the Episode 106 workshop. That empty bucket in the fuel slot is a pleasing reminder that an earlier workplace is already helping.
For black, I also use ink sacs gathered from squid in the lake in front of the future shop. Lapis from the underground storehouse and cornflowers provide blue. I mix black with white for gray, red with white for pink, and work through the remaining colors.
Building by the water and displaying all 16 wool colors
The site is a riverside terrace downhill from the wool machine. There is only grass here for now, with white town walls and a torii gate beyond. A small workplace should fit nicely into this view.
Dark timber posts and white walls begin to give the shop its shape. The roof is still to come. A fall during construction costs me some health, so I watch my footing rather than rushing to finish.
Inside, I line up three water-filled cauldrons as decorative indigo vats. This is ordinary water, not the method I use to dye wool. Still, the row makes the room feel much more like a dye shop.
The inventory now holds a cheerful spread of collected and crafted dyes. Flowers from the hill and cocoa from the jungle have come together in one place. Time to combine them with white wool.
Minecraft’s official dye introduction describes combining white wool with dye. I keep one sample white and dye the other 15 colors for the display.
I place the colored wool along the white back wall. Lime, green, cyan, light blue, blue and purple begin to form a row. The little shop is getting livelier.
Two rows of eight, and all 16 colors are together! The quiet whites, grays and brown sit alongside brighter reds, yellow and blues. Lanterns at the sides make this a rather satisfying wall to admire.
Patterning banners for blue noren and a shop flag
I put a blue banner and white dye into the loom, then choose a circle. A white circle on blue should suit a noren, the split fabric curtain across a Japanese shop entrance. I prepare three panels with this design and hang them across the doorway.
The loom’s job here is adding patterns to banners, rather than weaving wool. Minecraft’s loom introduction also describes choosing a pattern after inserting a banner and dye.
For the upright shop flag, I reverse the colors: a blue rhombus on a white banner. It gives the shop another small marker outside.
The interior comes together, with wool samples at the back, water cauldrons to the left, and barrels and a loom to the right. For the floor, I make three white carpets from two white wool, then dye them blue, red and magenta.
From the same side as the view before construction, three white-circle noren panels hang beneath the dark tiled roof. The blue fits the white walls and timber nicely. One yellow banner on the drying frame adds to the workshop atmosphere.
I stand in front of the shop for a photograph. I hide the middle panel, but the circles on either side peek out beside my face. Another workplace has joined the town.
From a slight angle, the wool samples peek through the entrance. Blue curtains outside, rows of color within: I hope it looks like somewhere worth stopping by.
On a later day, I return to look at the finished shop in daylight. This angle shows both ends of the roof, all three panels, and the floor and cauldrons beyond the entrance. The ingredient-gathering trip has become a place in town.
White wool has gained color, and those colors have given the shop its face. Next time I want to decorate something, I can stop at this sample wall before choosing. There is one more place I look forward to using again.
That is all for this time.
Greetings.