Dye Sheep Wool in Minecraft

There are two ways to dye sheep wool.

You can clobber a sheep, making it drop 1-2 wool blocks, which you can collect and apply dye to in the crafting grid, or

You can put dye in your toolbar and click it directly on the sheep, changing its color, and THEN hitting it, which makes it drop 1-2 blocks of the appropriate color.

Besides the fun of having a field of rainbow sheep, you can maximize your dyes by dyeing the sheep themselves.

Red comes from roses, the red flowers you see in the game.

When you hit one, it turns into a rose you can collect, and one rose in the crafting grid turns into 2 rose red dyes.

1 rose red dye and 1 white wool block in the crafting grid will make a red wool block

1 rose red dye and 1 bonemeal (made from bones dropped by skeletons) in the grid will make 2 pink dye.

1 pink dye and 1 white wool block in the grid will make a pink block.

Note: There are rare pink sheep in the game, which yield pink wool.

Just as red dyes are made from roses, yellow dyes are made from dandelions. They are the more common yellow flowers you will find throughout the world.

When you hit one, it becomes a yellow flower you can collect.

Place the dandelion into the crafting grid to create two yellow dyes.

One yellow dye and one white wool block in the grid makes a yellow wool block.

Want to make orange? Combine one red dye and one yellow dye in the grid to make orange dye.

One orange dye and one white wool block in the grid makes an orange wool block.

There are no blue flowers.

To make blue, you're going to have to dig for Lapis Lazuli.

Lapis is found in stone blocks deep underground, and look like the block above.

Lapis is still relatively tough to find, but each block now yields 4-8 Lapis ore, so you get more bang for the buck once you find it.

One Lapis ore and one white wool block in the crafting grid makes one Lapis Wool Block.

Note: 9 Lapis dyes placed in the 3x3 crafting grid (one in each square) makes one Lapis block. This is a stone type block, and doesn't have the smooth, textile look of a wool block, instead looking like a stained blue block.

One Lapis ore and one bonemeal in the grid will make two light blue dyes.

One light blue dye and one white wool block in the grid will make one light blue wool block.

Purple dye is made from Lapis dye and red dye.

One Lapis dye and one red dye makes 2 purple dyes.

One purple dye and one white wool block in the grid makes one purple wool block.

One purple dye and one pink dye (made from red and bonemeal, remember?) in the grid make 2 magenta dyes (magenta is between purple and pink in darkness, kind of a light purple).

There are no green flowers, but there ARE Cacti!

Cacti need to be put into the furnace to create cactus green dye.

One cactus in the furnace becomes one green dye.

One green dye and one white wool block in the crafting grid makes one green wool block.

One green dye and one bonemeal in the grid makes two lime (light green) dye.

One lime dye and one white wool block in the grid makes one lime wool block.

One green dye and one blue (Lapis) dye makes two cyan(aqua) dyes.

One cyan dye and one white wool block makes one cyan wool block.

Wool appears naturally in white, light gray, gray and black from sheep.

Just beat on them to get white, light gray, gray or black wool, depending on the type of sheep.

You can also get two shades of gray by using bonemeal.

In lieu of black sheep, you can get ink sacs from squids. Ink sacs count as black dye.

One ink sac and one white wool block in the crafting grid makes a black wool block.

One ink sac and one bonemeal in the grid makes two gray dyes. Add one gray dye to a white wool block to make a gray wool block.

One gray dye and one bonemeal in the grid makes two light gray dyes. Add one light gray dye to a white wool block to make a light gray wool block.

A more efficient way to make light gray dye is to combine one ink sac and two bonemeals to make three light gray dyes.

For lack of another place, brown dye can be made from cocoa beans, but brown wool also appears on sheep.

There are 15 different colors available, including 4 in the gray scale.

You can now make a wide variety of colors, and use them for accents or for giant pictures.