Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Avocado Pit Dyeing

I have been saving my avocado pits to try my hand at dying using natural products. I cannot remember on which Blog I read about someone success and the flesh color was really nice so thought I'd try it.  Try tho I may, I have not stumbled upon the person's blog so I could read how she did hers.  So I did a Google and found a link which I took notes on.

I'm using a half yard of the texture and just a strip of the white.  This is how it looks with some soaking and the other quarter yard not in the pot yet.

The pits have been soaking in water for approximately a week and daily I would bring the liquid to a boil and let it sit on the warm burner until the pot cooled. 
I put the pot on this morning about 8 a.m.  on a light simmer and put approx 5 or 6 cups of the liquid which has been soaking and intermittent boil and set on heat for maybe a week.  The link said that the mordant for avocado pit dying is alum.  So after the wool had been simmering for about an hour I put 1 teaspoon of alum in the pot. 

This might well be an exercise in futility afterall.  It is now after 11 a.m. and  the liquid is now cloudy and the wool only marginally pinkish.  I won't give up yet, and after I get a good start on a pattern I need to draw, I'll do some more Google search to see what else I can do to get the color to catch.  For sure I don't want to put vinegar or citric acid in there with the alum like a crazy scientist with an experiment gone bad.

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