It's avocado season here and as always, my family are taking advantage by spreading some on toast every morning, seasoned liberally with salt, pepper and lemon juice, of course!
But it also means we have a lot of avocado skins and stones and they make beautiful dye material. I shared a couple of dye experiments on my Instagram account lately and had some questions about my method, including some of the modifiers I use. I thought I'd share some notes here, just in case you're keen to boil up some avocado skins too!
Dyeing with avocadoes - a very rough guide
These are just my amateur notes, offered in the spirit of encouragement! Natural dyeing is an inexact science and there are so many variables to take into account. How ripe your avocadoes are to how much calcium is in your water and the length of time you steep your dye are just a few of the many factors that come into play. So I just suggest doing your own experiments and keeping a notebook for next time.
Just a warning - you'll want to use jars, pots and utensils that you don't use again for cooking, especially if you use iron and other modifiers. I suggest a trip to the secondhand store to pick up supplies, and you can look for things to dye while you're there! Old clothes and bedding of different fabric types can be cut up, and you can also look for white embroidery thread, yarn, ribbon and tapes to experiment on too.
🌿 Materials 🌿
Avocadoes - I usually use both the skins and stones of 4-5 avocadoes to make a dye bath that fills a medium-large saucepan. But you can still get good colour from 2-3. I collect the skins and stones in a bread bag in the freezer over time. I believe you can also dry the skins and stones until you're ready to use them, though I haven't tried that myself.
Fabric and yarn to dye - These notes are for dyeing natural fibres such as cotton, linen and wool fabric and yarn. I had in mind a colourwork knitting project, so I wanted to dye small skeins from a cone of cream 4ply wool yarn. I've used the same method successfully for cotton yarn, silk ribbons, embroidery thread, a silk dress and linen and cotton fabric. This method doesn't work well for synthetic fabrics.
Dye pot - I use a large aluminium pasta pot for dyeing. It's best to dedicate a pot solely for this use, and not cook food in it again. Because my pot is made from aluminium, I think it helps mordant my yarn/fabric at the same time.
Utensils - I use an old wooden spoon, again dedicated for this use and a kitchen sieve.
Modifiers - You don't have to use any of these, but they can be fun to play with. I've modified my avocado dye with baking soda, white vinegar, iron solution and there are more to try, such as citric acid, washing soda and cream of tartar to name a few.
Extras - it's also handy to have a notebook and pen for recording methods and results, an old towel, a couple of glass jars, rubber gloves, an outdoor burner (I don't have one of these but did my dyeing in the kitchen on a fine day with the doors and windows open), a face mask, a ph-neutral soap or washing-up liquid for soaking the yarn and fabric both before and after dyeing.
🌿 Method 🌿
It's best to remove any green flesh from the avocadoes beforehand, as it can 'muddy' the resulting colours. If I'm using pre-frozen skins and stones, I tip these into a sink of warm water and gently rub them with a cloth to remove the green. Then I place the cleaned skins and stones into my dye pot and fill it up with tap water. I put the lid on and bring it to a boil.
Once boiling, I reduce the heat and let the dye pot simmer for between 1-2 hours. I've read that it's best not to boil the avocadoes too hard as that can also muddy the dye. You can check the colour of your dye from time to time by dipping in a glass jar to collect a little water and check the colour. After a couple of hours, the water should look dark orange. You can keep simmering for longer if you like. Stir now and then with the wooden spoon.
While the dye is simmering, I prepare my fabric and yarn. These items can be 'scoured' but unless they're really dirty, I just wash them well by hand in warm soapy water, rinse well, then soak them again in warm clear water until I'm ready to add them to the dye pot.
Basic method (no modifiers):
Once I'm happy with the dye colour, I turn off the heat and sieve the dye into a big glass bowl, remove skins and stones and put them in the compost. Then I tip the dye back into the pot. At this point, if it's cooled down, I heat it up again till boiling, then turn off the heat and carefully place the yarn and fabric into the pot, trying not to agitate the yarn at all.
Then I leave the lot cooling for at least 4-5 hours. For lighter shades, I take the dyed items out and carefully rinse until the water runs clear. Then I squeeze the yarn dry by folding it up in a towel and stepping on it. I dry the finished skeins outside on a towel or hanging on the washing line, but out of the direct sunlight.
For deeper colours, just steep for longer - you can leave it in there for a couple of days if you like! Then repeat with the rinsing and drying process.
A recent batch of avocado dye. For the darker shades of linen fabric, I modified the dye with 1 tsp of baking soda and soaked the fabric overnight. The peachy shades were the result of silk and wool after 5-6 hours of soaking in the dye pot with no modifier. The bias tape didn't take the dye well as I think it has some synthetic content.
More involved method (with modifiers)
For deeper pinks, I left the skins and stones in the pot with my skeins of yarn, for about 12-15 hours before removing and rinsing.
For the grey-purple, I made an iron solution by soaking some rusty nails in a jar of warm water for 3 days with a spoonful of white vinegar added. Then I tipped about 1/4 cup of this solution to the dye pot. The dye turned very dark, almost black, and once I rinsed the yarn out it was a beautiful grey mauve. Just a note though - another time I did this, the yarn went black then rinsed clear. So this method is still a bit of a mystery to me!
For warmer, almost cherry-pink, I added 2 tablespoons of baking soda to the dye pot after boiling, then soaked linen fabric overnight.
If you want to experiment with different modifiers, you can tip the hot avocado dye into glass jars and add the different modifiers to each. You might want to label your jars for reference though.
🌿 Further reading 🌿
There are lots of amazing natural dye resources out there, from books and websites to YouTube tutorials! A few I've found helpful include Rebecca Desnos' Top Tips for Pinks (she uses soya milk to pre-treat / mordant her fabrics) and this thorough Four Rabbits tutorial about ph levels and modifiers. I also like the book The Wild Dyer by Abigail Booth but there will be lots of wonderful books to inspire you at your local library.
= = = I hope you have fun if you decide to give this a go. I'm looking forward to my next natural dyeing adventure this summer! = = =
