One of the things that I have wanted to try is natural dying. I read about using avocado pits to dye fiber with and was immediatly enamored with the gorgeous pink hues that are often achieved. My husband loves eating avocados and eats one nearly every day. He was happy to set the pits aside for me starting a few months before Cousin Camp. In the end, I collected 76 pits for this project.
We began the process the night before by soaking everything that we wished to dye in a tub of water. The next morning, we dumped the pits into a pot of water, brought the water to a boil, and then let it simmer for about an hour. Once the water turned deep red, we knew that it was ready. We strained the pits out of the dye bath and put in a handful of cloth, pulling out a scrap every ten minutes to see how lengthening time affected the color of the cloth. Unfortunatly, there was not much difference at all. I made a quick trip to the store to buy five fresh avocados to use for a second attempt at creating a dye bath.
We followed the same process to make the dye bath with the fresh avocado pits and skins, and were happy enough with the resulting dye, that we began dyeing our fabric. The resulting color was a beautiful rose gold, which my sister, Kate, used to sew two dresses with (one for her daughter and one for mine). I love the color that resulted in our dye and will definitely try this process again. I will have to find out the best way to keep the avocado pits and skins fresh longer so that I can try to get wider variety of color for our second attempt!
