pity, ’cause it’s pretty, but pits are the pits

Nope, ain’t gonna bother anymore. I suspect you do have to use the Hass avocados, reputedly the best for natural dyeing, but at 2-4 bucks each, that’s much more expensive than my grocery/natural dye budget allows for! WOF is 2:1, so that’s a LOT of pits that have to be saved…   I buy bags of the smaller whateverthevariety is for 3 bucks on sale, usually getting 4-6, because i do like eating them, but all this effort is a waste of time for me. I envy the deep pinks and russet corals others get, but nope, nope, nope.

See how beautiful it looks in the pot?

All the fibres were correctly premordanted according to type (cellulose and protein). They were done according to Carol Lee’s clear instructions from“Dyeing with Avocados, Food for my Dyepot”, Fall 2002 Spin-Off Magazine, but they are not Hass avocados, so blah blah blah.

The minute they were lifted to check on uptake, the colour started draining out:

Pathetic, even the silk. EDIT 15 minutes after posting: the cotton is definitely pink, deeper than the wool, and the silk has turned a hideous yellowy piss green……. The cotton has NO uptake (Carol does mention not such good results on cellulose, though Rebecca Desnos seems to make it work, possible because of the hideous soy milk “premordanting… which soy is not …. whatever………… not going there again to explain or to show the results *i* got when i subjected fabrics to it……)

Squeezed:I know what’s going to  happen when they are rinsed and dried: minimal nugatory insipid weak vapid ghost of an insignificant feeble pale negligibly pink colour. Nope.

To all the other intrepid dyers out there, good luck. Your dye bath will look F*&^ing FABulous, but unless it’s a Hass, it’s too much of a HASSle!

 

Edit June 20/18: how pink it isn’t……….

EDIT APRIL 30/19: subsequent discussions in a natural textile dye group, and my own lightfast tests, have concluded that avocado’s lovely pinks will gradually oxidize to browns, because they are more a tannin, than a dye.