How To: Build a Wool-Dye Workshop to Create Wool of Any Color

Are you exhausted from farming constant dyes to create colored wool? Are you looking for a quicker method to gathering colored wool, but don't know where to start? Are you still learning how to farm colored wool or how to make certain wool colors? This quick tutorial will go over how to find and create every possible colored dye in the game. 

Types of Dyes

There are three "categories" of dyes in Minecraft.

The first type of dyes are called the "primary colors." Primary colors are single ingredients that spawn naturally in a world, so virtually no crafting is involved.

Secondly, we have "secondary colors." Secondary colors can only be created by combining primary colored dyes together.

Lastly, we have "tertiary colors." Tertiary colors are created by combining at least one secondary dye color.

Quickest Way to Farm Wool

The quickest and most efficient way to farm colored wool is with a sheep farm. Of course, you can mix dyes with white wool in a crafting bench to create colored wool, but you go through resources incredibly quick. When you dye a sheep a certain color, then shear the sheep, you will receive between 1-3 pieces of wool. If you were to mix dye with white wool in a crafting bench, you would only receive 1 piece of the colored wool.

To keep a surplus of colored wool, you can breed the sheep. Make sure that you have grass for the sheep to eat or else their wool will not grow back. When you breed two sheep, it will produce a baby sheep of the same color as one of the parents. Keep in mind, the color is more likely to be that of the parent that was fed wheat first. No mixes of colors will occur; the baby will always be the same color as one of the parents.

Sheep

Natural spawning sheep aren't always white. They can spawn as white, light gray, dark gray, black, brown and even pink!

Primary Colors

Includes rose red, dandelion yellow, lapis lazuli (blue), cactus green, ink sac (black), bone meal (white) and cocoa beans (brown).

Step 1 Black Dye (Ink Sac)

Go on an adventure looking for squid. Don't forget your sword, which you'll be needing to kill the squids. 

When you kill squid, they will drop 1-3 ink sacs that you can use to dye wool and sheep with. With ink sacs, you can also make gray dye, but we'll go over that shortly!

Step 2 Blue Dye (Lapis Lazuli)

To create blue dye, you will need lapis lazuli. Lapis lazuli is found deep underground. Lapis lazuli cannot be mined with a wooden pickaxe, so be sure to bring a stone pickaxe or better! The best levels to find lapis are between Y coordinates 13 and 16, but any level below 31 will do! 

When you mine one single lapis lazuli ore, it can drop anywhere from 4-8 lapis lazuli. This is great because of how rare it is. You will only need a few lapis lazuli to start your colored wool farm, though!

Step 3 Brown Dye (Cocoa Beans)

To create brown wool, it can be quite difficult. Cocoa beans are only found in dungeon chests, and they only have a 53% chance of being found in the chests. If you do get lucky and find some cocoa beans in a dungeon chest, there will be between 1-3 inside the chest. This is plenty to get started!

Luckily, brown sheep do spawn naturally in the Minecraft world, so this makes things a little easier.

Step 4 Green Dye (Cactus Green)

Wander through a desert and collect some cacti. You won't need many, but the more you have, the easier it will be to boost your colored wool farm along! If you have a few cacti to start off with, you could consider creating a mini cacti farm to gather more. If you're not sure how to start off making a cacti farm, check out this tutorial!

To convert cacti into cactus green (dye), you will need to place it in a furnace and cook it. 

Step 5 White Dye (Bone Meal)

To create bone meal, all you need are bones! Bones drop from skeletons, and skeletons can drop between 0-2 bones at a time.

To create bone meal, place it in a crafting table. 1 bone will create 3 bone meal!

Bone meal can also be used for farming red and yellow dye.

Step 6 Red and Yellow Dye (Rose and Dandelion)

Yellow flowers will create yellow dye, and roses will create red dye. You can find flowers in tall grass areas. Just break some flowers and you will be able to create red and yellow dye!

You can also use bone meal to create tall grass. Tall grass has a chance to spawn flowers, so this is handy if you don't feel like wandering the world to find flowers.

Secondary Colors

Includes orange (red + yellow), cyan (green + blue), purple (red + blue), gray (black + white), light blue (blue + white), pink (red + white), and lime (green + white). All you have to do is mix the appropriate colors together to get your wanted secondary color dye.

Step 7 Orange Dye

Step 8 Cyan Dye

Step 9 Purple Dye

Step 10 Gray Dye

Step 11 Light Blue Dye

Step 12 Pink Dye

Step 13 Lime Dye

Tertiary Colors

Includes magenta (purple + pink) and light gray (gray + white) dyes. Again, pretty simple.

Step 14 Light Gray Dye

Step 15 Magenta Dye

Your Wool-Dye Workshop

Time to start farming!

Step 16 Sheep Farm

You will want to make some shears for yourself now!

Head over to your sheep farm and bring your dyes with you!

Hold your dye in your hand and right-click a sheep once. This will turn the color of the sheep to the dye you used to color them!

Grab some wheat and start breeding them to expand your colored wool farm.

Take your shears and start shearing all the colored sheep!

Questions for the Audience:

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