Stardew Valley offers an almost ridiculous number of clothing options for in-game player avatars. Almost any item in the game can be mixed with Cloth to create a unique garment, and many clothing items can even be dyed.

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Dyeing clothes in Stardew Valley isn't the most straightforward process, though. There are two ways of doing it: with a Sewing Machine or the dye pots in Emily and Haley's house. Additionally, not all dyes are made the same. To help make sense of the dyeing process, let's take a look at everything there is to know about it.

How to Unlock Dyeing

Unlocking the ability to tailor and dye is pretty simple. To do so, just find a single bolt of Cloth, and the next day, Emily will show up with instructions on using the sewing machine and dye pots at her house. Pretty simple, right?

RELATED: Stardew Valley: How to Get Cloth

It shouldn't be too difficult to find Cloth, since it is obtained in a wide variety of ways. But, here's a full list of all the ways it can be found:

• Place Wool from rabbits or sheep into a Loom
• Place Soggy Newspaper into a Recycling Machine
• Defeat Mummies, who can drop it
• Trade three Aquaramine to the Desert Trader on Wednesdays
• Befriend Emily, who will sometimes mail some to the farm

Dyeing with the Dye Pots

Once tailoring has been unlocked, there are two different ways to dye clothing. The first this post will look at is using the dye pots in Emily's house. These are found on the right side of the room where her sewing machine is located. They look like five bowls with paint in them. Simply interact with them to open up the dye pot menu.

There are five colored pots here, and each one requires an item of the corresponding color before a garment can be dyed. There are a ton of items that can be used for each color, though some easy-to-obtain ones are crops and forageables. Any item that can be used will be highlighted in the inventory with a small dot showing which color the item is. Additionally, scrolling over each of the pots will show inventory items that match the color.

After all the pots have been filled, the dye icon in the lower left will light up. Clicking this opens up the following screen:

From here, the sliders can be adjusted to change the color of an item. The top slider is for the hue, the second is for the saturation, and the third is for the lightness.

Some important notes:

• The player must be wearing any item they want to dye
• All dyeable items being worn will be dyed the same color
  • Take an item off if it shouldn't be dyed

• The items used for the colors in the dye pots will be consumed

This is by no means an exhaustive list of every item that can be used, but here are some easily obtainable examples for each color:

Dyeing with the Sewing Machine

Using the dye pots is not the only method for changing the color of clothing, though. It's also possible to dye clothes with a sewing machine (on the farm or at Emily's house), though it works a little differently.

Instead of filling out all the colors and selecting from a slider, the sewing machine consumes one item at a time and combines its color with the garment's color. For example, if a white shirt is placed in the Cloth section and Cranberries are placed in the spool, the shirt will be dyed red. If a yellow shirt is dyed with Cranberries, the shirt will be more of an orange color.

Every item that can be used to dye clothing comes with a strength level, which determines how strong its dyeing abilities are. The above image shows a Joja Cola (normal strength) shifting a pair of shorts to a very light blue; a Blue Jazz (medium strength) dyeing the white shorts a bit of a darker blue; and a Blueberry (strong) dyeing the shorts a deep blue.

Normal-strength items work out to about 25% strength, medium-strength items are about 50%, and a strong dye item is 100% strength. If using normal-strength items, it will take four times applying dye to match what a strong item would achieve.

The same principle applies to dyeing clothes that aren't already white. Dyeing a pair of blue shorts with a normal strength red item will make them a slightly more blueish shade of purple, while using a strong red item will make them completely red.

In this image, a pair of blue shorts is dyed with an Apple (normal strength red), resulting in a pretty dark purple that leans more toward blue. A Radish (medium strength red) creates a more balanced purple between blue and red, while, on the right, Cranberries (strong red) are used, turning the shorts completely red.

Alternately, a player can completely avoid needing to know almost anything about combining colors and still use a sewing machine to dye their clothes. By placing a Prismatic Shard or a Rainbow Shell in the spool, the sewing machine will open up the hue-saturation-lightness slider menu that the dye pots use.

Here are all the items that are considered medium strength or strong:

Stardew Valley is available on PS4, PS Vita, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC, Android, and iOS.

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