Well even if the third try didn't succeed it's a done deal now as I've thrown away all those avocado pits and skins ~ probably at least a dozen. And won't be saving any pits in the future. Am done with the avocado dyeing but not with avocado eating.
Heated up the pits in water over and over since the previous attempt to get flesh tone. Then realized there might be some pinky flesh liquid left from a flesh dye for Polly. Did that when she was hooking and it turned out too pink and saved the liquid. So put two tablespoons of it in the pot with the avocado liquid and here is outcome from THIRD and FINAL try.
This was the second try below.
And the first attempt.
There was incremental progress after each attempt but baby I'm over the avocado thing. Even if I decide not to hook 3 Cousins in April at least I've a nice mellow flesh tone.
Last Sunday I spent several hours photographing Icelandic Lopi and a few patterns to list on eBay. Yesterday I spent a few hours taking more photos and listing composition doll heads, doll pattern, vintage feed sacks and quilt patterns. If nothing sells all that just might take a trip to the thrift shop.
Today think I'll do some sketching for the potential next project. No, haven't decided what is next yet. Still have one corner of Winter Bloom to hook and the remainder of Friendship Bells to bind.
Happy Sunday.
Saundra
Was determined to try avocado dyeing before leaving for rug camp and the results sure don't require a drum roll.
I used 8 avocados and a few skins, perhaps more avocados would have produced a richer result. The avocados were put in a mesh bag and hit them with a hammer, split in half to simmer more surfaces.
The avocados soaked over 3 days and simmered them several times over those 3 days.
Not wanting to spend anymore time on this lackluster project I drained the juice and simmered the half yard of wool.
Didn't know what to expect but having done black walnut dyeing before was thinking the avocados would produce something better than this. Results on the left and white wool was used.
At least the wool is no longer a bright white and it will be easy enough to over-dye again. When it became apparent this was going to be a disappointment figured tea or onion dyeing would have given more of what I was hoping for.
I still have a bunch of avocado pits and skins in my freezer should I ever try to use the whole bag instead of just 8 pits. But that won't happen this week as I've got to start getting ready for camp.
Happy hooking.
Saundra
Last time I leached out color from the avocado pits I did it over several days. I'd bring the quartered pits and skins to a boil and then turn the pot off but let the pot remain on the burner at room temperature. This went on for a few days to be sure that I got a lot of color. This time I didn't do that ~ I brought the pits to a boil then turn it to simmer until I was ready to dye. I put both cups in the pot of water with the wool but saw no change in color hardly. So, I put all the pits and skins in the pot of water in the hopes to get more color.
And with the onion skin juice I'd retrieved from my freezer, put the two cups in the other pot of wool. Again, perhaps I had too much wool and while this pot was producing more color than the avocado pits, it still wasn't dark enough for my liking. So, decided to use the onion skins I'd been collecting and go for broke.
These onion skins I just saved from cooking. But the first time I did the onion skin dying I asked if I could clean out the onion bin at the local store and they were happy to have a free cleaner-upper and I went home with a couple shopping bags full of all kinds of onion skins for free.
Here is a picture of the results. The top row of wool is what I achieved from my dye project of several months ago using avocado pits and using alum as the mordant. The bottom row of wool is what occurred from this project. The first piece of wool on the first and second row is the very same wool; top was from previous dye job and the bottom row is yesterday's dye job.
The following picture shows the top row using avocado dye and the bottom row is using onion skins. The checked piece of wool on the top row is the very same wool as the one below it and you can see the difference in color. Same thing for wool #2 on bottom row and the one above; ditto with the orange plaid wool next to last.
You can see the onion skins do a great job of dying and I shall not bother saving avocado pits any longer as it isn't worth the trouble. However, it was fun to experiment.
A few months ago I experimented with avocado dying and used alum as the mordant. That is what was recommended in the information I'd read. This time I'm going to use vinegar to set the color instead of alum and see what, if any difference there is. And recently on Rughookers Yahoo group there was some chatter and questions about onion skin dying. So I thought I'd do another experiment and post this link on Rughookers for interested readers to check out.
Of course today's avocado experiment has the variable on how strong the liquid was that I used before and how much wool for the uptake of the color. However, it is always nice to have different values of the same color so it will be fun to do the dyeing again.
I've gathered a sampling of reclaimed wool, wool that needs a little color boost and some of the same wool previously used in the other avocado dye project for comparison.
Here is some wool that will be used for the avocado dye pot. Bits and pieces of this and that and wanted to see how it might tone down the bright yellow. The 4th piece from the left is just like what I used for the avocado before.
This is wool that will go in the onion skin dye pot. Since the dyes look sorta similar in color inside the measuring cup, thought it might be fun to see the difference in the results from like pieces of wool.
This picture blow shows the avocado liquid on the left, which was achieved by cooking a collection of avocado seeds (with skins) which I halved or quartered in a pot of water. On the right is some onion skin liquid that I pulled out of my freezer from juice saved from a previous simmering of skins which I put in a nylon stocking.
These are 2 cup measuring cups and will start out using just one cup until I see the results and will add more to each pot as I see fit. I will post a picture of the results when the dying is done.
Ah, I've learned that it was on Alice's Folk Art Primitives Blog where I originally saw the avocado dying. Guess I didn't go back far enough into the archives of the blogs I went looking in. And, Alice told me she used vinegar as the mordant whereas I used alum which was in the google search I did. Alice said hers turned out nicely.
There was still color in the pot after a long simmer with the alum, perhaps I should have done what Alice said she did ~ which was to let the wool soak overnight. Well, I didn't, so after the water cooled the wool was rinsed and spun dry.
These are the results of the dye with avocado pit experiment. The thinner strips of wool were white white and the other is the color of the wool under the dye experiment.
So you ask, would I ever do it again? Well, maybe; but I've got to start collecting avocado pts again and next time I'll do what Alice did. And, next time maybe I'll try vinegar instead of alum. I was looking for a flesh and flesh is what I got.
