Avocado Dye Experiment - Part 2

I loved the way my wool turned out last week and couldn't wait to try more avocado dye. Plus, I had saved the used avocado skins and pits from the previous dye extraction, so the materials were ready to go. Also (as if I needed another reason), I am designing a light summery tank top that would look great with any of the pink colors that I got on my last avocado dye experiment.

This time, I dyed a giant cone of crochet thread (100% mercerized cotton). I had tested this same cotton last week by making a couple ties for my hank out of this thread. I think the results this time are just as beautiful!

Note: these instructions/experiment notes are less detailed than usual, because mostly I followed the same procedure as in avocado dye experiment - part 1. Any differences are specifically noted.

Dye extraction: 25 hours

This dyebath was made as the 2nd extraction from the avocado pits and skins I used last week. They were still a nice deep red color and started showing pink in the dyebath immediately after I added them to water. I simmered/cooled for about 25 hours before I was ready to dye.

Scouring: as usual using my dish soap method

Dye: 3 hours

I got impatient so didn't let the cotton thread sit very long in the dyebath. It looked like such a deep pink... in hindsight, I should have let it sit longer before rinsing.

The difference between this and the wool dye in experiment 1 was that this time, I rinsed the cotton immediately after dyeing (I didn't let it fully dry first). I'm not sure what impact this had on the result, but will experiment again in the future!

The result was a beautiful, very light blush. I like the subtlety of the color, and the mercerized cotton has a nice sheen, almost like silk. If you have the patience to deal with crochet thread, I highly recommend it!

Vanilla Apple Popsicle Recipe

These healthy popsicles are addictive! And they're so easy to make at home - just 2 ingredients (plus the popsicle mold that you just made, right?). Of course, if you already have a store-bought popsicle mold, that would work too.

These popsicles have creaminess from the yogurt, tartness from the applesauce, and a touch of sweetness throughout. Delicious, refreshing, and so cold!

If you make these the fast way, the layers blend a bit and you get wavy lines between them. If you wanted straighter lines between the layers, let each layer freeze a little bit before adding the next (but obviously this takes more time and planning). My philosophy - even a messy popsicle is a tasty popsicle, and faster making means sooner eating!

Ingredients:

• Vanilla greek yogurt
• Applesauce

Instructions:

1. Fill bottom layer (1-1.5 inches) of the popsicle mold with vanilla yogurt.
2. Fill next layer (1-1.5 inches) with applesauce.
3. Gently place top layer of yogurt on top.
4. Cover top of popsicle mold with cap and insert the popsicle sticks. If you're using my homemade mold, then the cap is the aluminum foil covering.
5. Freeze 4-5 hours until firm.
6. Remove and eat!
   

Popsicle Mold - Make Your Own!

As the weather heats up, those popsicle recipes on Pinterest are looking more and more irresistable.... I'm a huge fan of fruit and/or yogurt popsicles, with no need for added sugar! Sometimes you can even blend in some hidden veggies for extra texture.

I don't have a popsicle mold at home though. Instead of rushing out to buy one, which costs money and means you have to wait for shipping, I made my own out of a used spice container. It took just 5 minutes to make, used materials I had lying around the house, and works great!

I used a Costco big spice jar (e.g. for red pepper flakes, black pepper) for my mold that makes 4 popsicles at a time. You don't have to use the same one - almost any plastic one will work, but obviously the shape of the popsicles will be different. Just pick a plastic jar that is the same width all the way around (otherwise, if there's a wider section at the bottom of the mold, your popsicles will get stuck in that wide section and you would be able to pull them out after freezing).

Materials needed:

• Empty spice container
  
• Popsicle sticks or disposable chopsticks
• Aluminum foil
  
• Knife

Steps:

1. Cut the top off the spice container along the dotted line shown. We want it to be the same width all the way around.
2. Cover the top of the cut-off container with aluminum foil.
3. Poke 4 holes in the aluminum foil as shown, roughly equally spaced so that each hole is in the middle of a quadrant. If you have a knife, this can help you poke through the foil before you stick your popsicle sticks or chopsticks through.
4. Fill mold with your popsicle filling of choice. Insert one popsicle stick or chopstick through each of your four holes. Freeze until firm.
   
5. Once frozen, run the sides of the mold under warm water to melt the side slightly and loosen the popsicle from the mold. Pull out the popsicles from the mold, and cut the large block into quarters. Eat!
   

You can adjust the size of your popsicles by putting more or less filling in the mold (so that it goes higher or less high up the sides). I wouldn't recommend trying to fit more than 4 in the mold at a time, because the thickness is what helps keep the frozen popsicle together without cracking.

Leave a comment or pin this on Pinterest if you try it!

Popsicle recipes to try with your new popsicle mold:

- Vanilla apple popsicles (pictured in the mold-making instructions)

- More coming soon (I'll update this page as I add more)

Avocado Dye Experiment - Part 1

 

Avocados yield a beautiful pink dye. Surprising? Specifically, the dye comes from the pits and skins (so you get to eat all the yummy bits, yay!)

The internet has several "recipes" or posts about avocado dye, but the instructions and results are highly variable. Success and color seems to depend on pH, type of avocado, extraction method/time, fiber, and ?? magic ?? (for the links that I found useful, see bottom of article). This experimental series is designed to see if I can reliably extract pink dye from avocados on different natural fibers.

For this experiment, I made dye from the pits and skins of 11 avocados. I scrubbed off the residual bits of avocado flesh, chopped the pits into eighths, and froze everything in a big ziplock bag until I had enough (maybe 2-3 weeks). [Note: you don't need 11 avocados. As I found out, 11 is wayyyyy overkill. Probably just 4-5 avocados would have been more than enough for my half pound of wool.]

As always, I used whatever base yarns that I had at home.
- Full skein (227g/8oz) of Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool (100% wool) - base color: natural
- 4 ties (minimal weight) around the skein of Lion Brand Wool-Ease (20% wool, 80% acrylic) - note: the acrylic content should not dye, so the final color should be lighter than pure wool - base color: fisherman
- 2 ties (minimal weight) around the skein of Red Heart Classic 10 Crochet Thread (100% mercerized cotton) - base color: natural

Materials Needed
- Avocado pits and skins
- Wool and/or cotton yarn
- Dye pot large enough for yarn to move around freely
- Scouring agent or dish soap
- Baking soda or washing soda (latter preferred)
- Dye pot or two (not used for food)

Methods
I scoured everything per my standard procedure detailed here, leaving the yarn in a bucket of water because I was planning to dye soon. I didn't use any mordants for this experiment because avocado dye isn't supposed to require mordant - avocados have naturally high tannin content, which acts as the mordant. (I do plan to try alum and possibly black walnut tannin in future experiments.)

Extract Dye
I wanted to see if the skins and pits gave different colors. So, I put chopped up avocado skins in one pot and chopped up pits in the other. I read that you're not supposed to boil the dye because that can brown it, so I alternated heating for 5-10 minutes (watching to make sure the pots didn't get past simmering) and letting the pots sit, covered, for 30-60 minutes on the stove with the heat off. I did this for 3 cycles of heating/waiting, then left it alone to sit overnight. Throughout the next day I did 6 more heat/wait cycles. (Total dye extraction time = 25 hours).

During this process, I kept an eye on the color of the dyebaths. I don't have litmus paper to test pH, so I just relied on my eyes. If things didn't look pink or at least red/orange, I added some baking soda to raise the pH of the dyebath (make it more alkaline). In hindsight, I should have measured the baking soda amount... sorry, will do that next time. My rough guess: about 1/8 cup of baking soda per pot. As you can kind of see from the before-and-after pics below, the dyebaths were kind of murky yellow before baking soda but got much more red/pink as the pH increased. The dyebaths got more concentrated as time passed, but the color change was really from the baking soda.

Dye

I scooped out as many of the avocado pit and skin chunks as I could (and saved them in a plastic bag and froze them, in case I wanted to use them again). Then I draped my yarn across the two pots, with one end of the skein in the avocado skins dyebath and the other end in the avocado pits dyebath. I did about 8 heat/wait cycles throughout the day.

The pot edges were kind of high so the middle didn't get much dye, and the dye didn't really wick up the yarn to cover the dry spot. I tried to rotate the yarn slightly throughout the dye process and pour some of the dye over the middle section so that it got at least a little dye.

As always, I was hoping for as vibrant of a color as possible, so I left the yarn in the dyebath for the rest of the day and overnight (about 24 hours total).

The next morning, I took the yarn out and let it dry fully BEFORE rinsing.

Results

After letting the yarn dry for 2 days, I rinsed in cold water until the water ran clear. Here are pictures of the yarn before and after rising. The rinsewater from the first few rinses was super dark, almost the color of the dyebath (which makes sense, I guess).

On the 100% wool, the avocado skin dye came out a bit pinker, and the avocado pits created a somewhat browner pink. Here is the stretched-out wool skein after fully drying - skin-dyed side on the left, pit-dyed side on the right.

The wool blend (20% wool, 80% acrylic) came out a nice blush color, lighter than the pure wool (as expected). I didn't notice much of a difference between skins and pits, probably because such a small fraction of the yarn dyed.

The cotton thread was fairly different between skins and pits, with the pits giving a softer light pink color (middle of picture below) and the skins dying a much darker, almost orange-tinged pink (right). Undyed cotton thread is at the left for reference.

Conclusions and Future Directions
I'm really happy with how this experiment turned out! The colors are beautiful on all fibers and especially vivid on the wool.

11 avocados gave WAY more dye than I needed for 8oz of wool. The dyebath was roughly the same color when I poured it out as when I started steeping the yarn. I probably could have dyed at least twice as much fiber to the same color (but unfortunately I needed my stove back for cooking actual food and didn't have time for more).

My next step with avocado dye is to do a second extraction from the saved pits and skins (together) from this experiment. I scooped out most of the solid content but there were definitely some left when I poured out the dyebath, so I'm guessing I have around 9 avocados worth for the second extraction. I'll use this to dye a full 1000yd cone of crochet thread (100% mercerized cotton) because I'm designing a tank top that would look lovely with some of this gorgeous pink.

Useful Links About Avocado Dye - Sites with info that I found helpful. I haven't experimented enough to personally verify all their information, but I've tried some of their tips or think they make sense/are worth a try.

https://rebeccadesnos.com/blogs/journal/avocado-dye-faqs-top-tips-for-pink
http://www.allnaturaldyeing.com/dyeing-with-avocados/

Sand and Sea Wrap Bracelet - Photo Tutorial

Since I'm still stuck inside and not buying new craft supplies until I work down my huge stash, I made this wrap bracelet out of beads that I've had for years.

I'm in love with this color combo - it reminds me of a blissful seaside retreat.

Materials needed:
- Beads of choice
- Leather cord (2mm diameter, enough length to wrap around your wrist 2x as long as you want the bracelet. My bracelet wraps my wrist 5 times, so I cut my leather cord long enough to wrap around my wrist 10 times + 1 more time to give me room for tying knots, etc.)
- Crochet thread or beading thread (3x as long as leather cord). I used crochet thread so that's what I'll call it throughout the instructions.
- (optional but very helpful) Cardboard bobbin to wind the crochet/beading thread on while working
- Thin plastic wire to help with threading beads
- Clasp, toggle, or just add extra length to your leather cord to make a big knot

Instructions:
1. Find the center of your leather cord and tie an overhand loop knot so that you have two working cords coming out of the knot.

2. Tie a slip knot at the beginning of your crochet thread and tighten it just below your knot in the leather cord. Wrap the crochet/beading thread several times around both of your working leather cords, hiding the short tail of your slip knot inside this wrap (which I messed up in the picture below). At this point, it might be helpful to put a book or something similar over the overhand loop to hold it down while you work (I used my planner as a weight). At this point, it should look something like the below (but ignore the bead in the photo - adding beads is coming next).

3. Wrap the crochet thread around the front of the right working cord.

4. Thread the thin plastic wire through the bead. (Note: I'm using a pretty thick plastic wire here so you can see it in the pictures. I would recommend using a thinner one, as it will be MUCH easier to pull through.)

5. Lay the crochet thread over the plastic wire and loop the plastic wire back through the bead in the other direction.

6. Pull the plastic wire loop through the hole in the bead, drawing the crochet thread through with it (you should now have a loop of crochet thread going through the bead).

7. Thread the left working leather cord through this crochet thread loop and pull gently until snug (but not tight) to anchor the bead to the left side of the bracelet.

8. Wrap the crochet thread around the right working leather cord from front to back.

For the next bead, repeat steps 3-8 but wrapping on the right leather cord from back to front. That is, in step 3 wrap the crochet thread along the back of the leather cord, and in step 8, wrap from back to front.

Continue adding beads to desired length, alternating whether you are wrapping from the front or wrapping from the back. This creates a wave pattern along the right side of the bracelet that fits perfectly with the beach/sea theme.

9. Finishing the bracelet - depending on your desired toggle/clasp/knot ending, this part will be a bit different. For a clasp or toggle, tie the two working leather cords together in another overhand loop knot. Wrap the crochet thread through or around this knot and tie your clasp or toggle on securely.

I used a toggle made out of an old earring whose mate got lost years ago. The rhinestoned bar was perfect for a toggle with just a bit of sparkle.

Scouring Yarn (Before Dyeing) - The Simple Way

I basically scour all my yarns the same way for every type of dye that I have tried so far. This method uses no fancy/specialty ingredients or equipment! Maybe in the future I'll branch out and buy speciality scouring detergents, but for now, this seems to be working:

1. Fill large pot with room temperature water and a generous squeeze of dish soap.

2. Add yarn and gently push it around to fully submerge. Make sure the pot is large enough and there's enough water that your yarn isn't too tightly packed in there or squished on the bottom of the pot.

3. Heat to a simmer for 20-30 minutes. If using wool, do not boil (or you risk felting)! If using cotton, then boiling is less of a potential disaster, but still not recommended.

4. Cover pot and let it gradually cool for 2+ hours (or whenever you remember to come back to it).

5. Rinse yarn thoroughly but gently.

You can either let the yarn dry completely for dyeing later, or keep soaking it in a bucket/tub/pot of clean water if you're going to dye it soon. 

Beet Natural Dye Experiment - Part 1

I cooked some beets recently, and since dyeing yarn has been on my mind, the opportunity presented itself to use the dark pink cooking water....

As always, I used whatever non-fancy base yarns that I had on hand, split into 5 mini-skein samples.
Sample A: Bernat Handicrafter Cotton (100% cotton) - scoured, mordanted with alum
Sample B: Lion Brand Wool-Ease (20% wool, 80% acrylic*) - unscoured, unmordanted (1 tie)
Sample C: Lion Brand Wool-Ease (20% wool, 80% acrylic*) - scoured, unmordanted (3 acrylic ties)
Sample D: Lion Brand Wool-Ease (20% wool, 80% acrylic*) - scoured, mordanted with alum
Sample E: I thought this was Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool (100% wool) - scoured, mordanted with alum. But, based on the results, maybe it was Wool-Ease as well and I mislabeled it at some point between making mini-skeins (a while ago I made a bunch) and now?

* Note: the beets shouldn't dye the acrylic here, so the overall color should be lighter than pure wool)

Materials Needed
- Beets
- Wool or cotton yarn
- Dye pot large enough for yarn to move around freely
- Scouring agent or dish soap
- Alum
- Vinegar
- Salt
- Dye pot (not used for food)

Methods
Scour yarn
I don't have any specific wool detergent yet (but might invest in some if I plan to do a lot more dyeing), so I just used gentle dish soap and very gently swished around my yarns. Then I heated up the soapy water + yarn to just below a boil and let it cool again to room temp. Once cooled, I drained off the soap water and rinsed well in cold water.

Mordant
There are many great sets of instructions for mordanting specific fibers (see for example this guide to mordanting wool with alum from All Fiber Arts).

Since I had a mix of fibers in my test, I used a generic procedure dissolving about 1/4 of my fiber weight in alum to warm water in my dye pot. Then I added my fibers and simmered for 30 minutes, then let it cool down and sit overnight.

Extract Dye

This happened while I was cooking. I made pickled beets, which involves boiling the beets for 30 minutes, then adding vinegar, sugar, salt, and spices and boiling another 15 minutes. I saved the cooking water from this (which already contained vinegar and salt) in a jar in the fridge for a few days while I prepared the fiber. If you do this, you probably want to label the jar so household members don't drink it... it's an appetizing dark pink juice color (it's still completely edible at this point, but accidentally drinking beet pickle juice... yuck).

Dye
After my yarns were mordanted (and I pre-soaked the yarn that was intentionally unmordanted for experimental purposes), I poured off the alum water and poured the beet juice into the dyepot. Since it super cold from the fridge, I left my yarn out out of the pot while I heated the dyebath to room temp, then added the yarn to bring everything up to a simmer for 90 minutes. I also added a pinch of salt early in the heating process because I didn't use that much during the cooking/dye extraction.

I was hoping for as vibrant of a color as possible, so I left the yarn in the dyebath to cool and let it sit the rest of the day and overnight (about 24 hours total, including the heating period). Obviously I still had to eat that day, so once the dyepot cooled down I took it off the stove and moved it somewhere out of the way. Sometime during the afternoon, I noticed that the color had turned a darker brick red, rather than the pinker color that it was in the fridge (more notes on this later).

The next morning, I took the yarn out and (wearing gloves) rinsed in cold water. Then I let it dry.

Results

Top row: cotton. From left to right: undyed, scoured + alum + dyed.
Bottom row: wool-ease. From left to right: undyed, not scoured or mordanted, scoured but not mordanted, and scoured + alum + dyed

After drying, I ended up with a range of peaches, depending on the fiber and mordanting. The cotton (Sample A) was darkest, kind of a brownish peach. The unscoured Wool-Ease (sample B) was classic light peach, and the scoured Wool-Eases (samples C and D) were darker peach with hints of salmony warmth.

Scouring had more of an effect than mordanting, with the unscoured (sample B) coming out a touch lighter/more peachy. The two scoured samples (C and D) were about the same, even though D was pre-mordanted with alum and C was not. D might have been ever-so-slightly darker, but it's hard to tell if that's just my own confirmation bias.

As noted above, I expected sample E to be darker than B-D since acrylic doesn't absorb color and sample E was supposed to be 100% wool. Given the result that E turned out exactly like D, I'm going to try again in the future with a new wool mini-skein made straight from a skein with labels still on it to make sure it is actually wool. So I'm not interpreting anything about E right now, and I didn't include it in my picture to avoid any confusion further on (if you're wondering anyway, it looks just like D).

A Big Observation, Conclusions, Future Directions
The dyebath color darkened and got more red/less pink as the dyeing process went on. When I finished and was cleaning up, I noticed my enamelware dyepot had a crack in the lining with metal showing through. This was definitely not there during scouring or mordanting steps. In hindsight, while simmering the yarn in the dyebath I had heard a single pop/crack sound, but didn't think much of it at the time. That was probably the lining cracking, and maybe the exposure to whatever iron is in the pot darkened/saddened my colors. I can't buy a new dyepot right now, so will test this in the future maybe with a microwave or sun dye to add heat without exposure to the dyepot. (Edit: I acquired a new dyepot... convinced myself that my old cooking pot needed to be replaced, which of course frees that pot up for dye...)

Alternative interpretations for the red instead of pink results:
- Too much heat (either too hot, or heated for too long). I don't think it was too hot, because the cooking process involves boiling and that still yielded pink. It might have been heating for too long, which I could test in the future.
- Sat too long/oxidized. Can't rule this out. The pickled beet juice sat for a few days in the fridge before dyeing and stayed pink throughout that wait time, but it was sealed in an air-tight jar. The dye pot was covered, but definitely not air-tight.
- Something in the water. I used tap water, which is pretty clean but might have had tiny impurities in it. Not sure why this would cause darkening over time during the dyeing, rather than right away though.
- Too much or too little vinegar or salt? I didn't really measure, but used about 1/4 vinegar to water for the cooking recipe. Some of the water probably boiled off, but that was the approximate ratio. I could experiment with adding more vinegar or adding baking soda to adjust the pH. (Later edit: upon further research, I found out that the dye compound in beets, betanin, is known to be pH sensitive and turns more brown as pH becomes alkaline. So I will make sure to rinse better after scouring and add some more vinegar for good measure.)

The dyebath was also still quite red when I was done. I used 1.3 pounds (590g) of beets for about 15g of yarn across all of the mini-skeins, so I could probably have dyed more yarn.

Overall, I was expecting more pink than orange, but the peachy color is also very pretty, especially in the wool-eases (blends). I'm not as big of a fan of the cotton, which was much brighter while wet but dulled while drying. There will definitely be a part 2 of this experiment!

Eastern Redbud Natural Dye Experiment

The eastern redbud trees near my home bloom every spring and are so beautiful with their branches covered in purple/pink! The branches are covered in thousands of tiny little flowers:

I am going a bit crazy with dyeing things and wanted to see if these flowers would make a lasting dye (I picked my flowers off the ground under the trees because it seemed like a shame to take them off branches). Remember, most plants won't work for dyeing (either the color won't stick to fabric, or it will fade quickly, or something of the sort). This was an exploratory experiment!! If you want to try this or any similar experiments on your own, remember to use separate utensils/pots for dyeing and food, ventilate well, and don't trespass or take stuff that isn't yours when collecting dyestuffs.

For all tests below, I tested bits of wool (Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool, in Natural) and cotton (Bernat Handicrafter Cotton, in White). As usual, nothing fancy.

Experiment 1 - vinegar, moderate heat, no mordant, wool and cotton
Dye extraction: Pour 3 handfuls of flowers into a glass jar that can withstand boiling water. A teacup also works. Boil water and pour into jar/cup, enough to cover flowers. Insulate (e.g. in a cooler or insulated bag) overnight or up to 48 hours. Strain out flower pieces. Mine were a soggy gray/brown color when I took them out, so it looked like most of the pink color had transferred to the dye bath.

Dyeing: Add yarn to be dyed into the dye bath jar. I let the jar sit for about 24 hours on a windowsill. I noticed the dye bath got more colorless, and the cotton yarn turned a beautiful medium pink. The wool yarn looked pretty unchanged... so I added a splash of vinegar. The vinegar immediately brightened up the dye bath to almost hot pink. Then I boiled some more water, filled 2 separate jars with the hot water, and put it all in an insulated bag overnight so the hot water bottles would gently warm up the dyebath. I let this sit for a weekend (obviously it wasn't hot anymore after the first few hours) and then rinsed out the yarn.

Results: The cotton was a beautiful pink before rinsing (unfortunately had my hands full so didn't take a picture at this stage), but most of the pink rinsed out leaving a pale gray-ish lavender. It's subtle, but I like it. In hindsight, I wasn't sure whether the vinegar addition changed the cotton, so tested without vinegar in round 2 (below). I'll be washing this sample a few more times to see if it sticks. The wool didn't do much, maybe got a bit dingier or dirtier looking.

Top: Undyed wool sample in skein with the dyed (basically unchanged) small sample on top
Bottom: Undyed cotton in skein with dyed (lavender) small sample on top

Experiment 2 - salt, moderate heat, alum mordant, wool and cotton
Pre-mordanting: Soak yarn for a few hours in a glass jar that can withstand boiling water. I poured off most of the water and replaced it with boiling water (pouring along the sides of the jar and not directly onto the wool to avoid felting). Then I poured in alum (wear a mask! make sure you have ventilation! alum can be irritating) and gently swirled the jar to dissolve. I placed this in my insulated bag from round 1 with another jar of hot water and let it sit overnight (while simultaneously extracting the dye).

Dye extraction: Same as round 1, extracted for about 20 hours. I used a different jar and cozied the extracting dye jar up to the mordant solution jar in the insulated bag.

Dyeing: Move the yarn directly from the mordant solution into the dye bath. I boiled some more water, filled 2 more jars with hot water, and put it all in the insulated bag for 48 hours, replacing the hot water every 12 hours or so.

Results: The cotton was again a beautiful pink before rinsing, and washed out to a grayish-purple, but this time slightly darker than in experiment 1. In the picture below, I washed only half the sample so you can see both the washed and unwashed colors.

Left: results from experiment 2. Unwashed portion is at top (more pink) and washed portion is at bottom (more light purple).
Right: results from experiment 1, for reference.
Back: undyed white cotton skein, for reference.

When I later washed out the pinker area (previously unwashed), most of the pink came out and it was a (very very) slightly darker version of the washed section (bottom left portion of the experiment 2 picture above).

The wool didn't do much (no picture of this, because I immediately tossed it into experiment 3).

Experiment 3 - stovetop heat, acid and salt, wool and cotton
As a final test, I used the wool from experiment 2 (previously treated with alum) and the cotton from experiment 1 (no alum), dumped the dyebath from experiment 2 into my dyeing pot with a splash of lemon juice and salt, and heated it to a simmer for 30 minutes.

Results: No changes!

Conclusions
Eastern Redbud flowers don't give the most vibrant dye, but they do dye cotton (which is notoriously difficult for most natural dyes) to a cool lavender. Alum helps deepen the color a bit. Wool doesn't seem to work with this dye.

Also, if you're looking to naturally dye something pink that won't be washed (e.g. a macrame wall hanging or plant hanger), then this could be an option. Bonus points since Eastern Redbud flowers are supposedly edible (but I can't verify this) and alum is an irritant but not poisonous, so the dye is relatively non-toxic.

Here is a picture of the cotton from experiment 2 after about a week of direct sun exposure (to test fading). I didn't plan ahead so I didn't keep half of the sample out of the sun, so there's nothing to compare to. I think it faded a little bit, but it's still clearly different from the undyed white color.

Future Directions - unanswered questions that I might explore in the future

• What if I use more flowers for a smaller amount of yarn?
• It seems that most of the pink color in the dyebath isn't a true dye, but there is a more subtle purple color that does dye the cotton. The purple is only at the bottoms of the flowers (and you can see it more clearly when the flowers dry out), so there's not much of it to work with. Would I get a darker color using twice the number of flowers? I didn't weigh anything in these experiments, but would be worth considering for future.
• Does this work with frozen flowers?
• How long does this dye last? (How many months or how many washes?)
• Does simmering on stovetop help with dye extraction? Development of color? Dye fastness?
• Do other mordants give darker/richer color? E.g. commonly-used cotton mordants like aluminum acetate or alum-tannin?

Upcycled Hummus Container Planter DIY

This super easy and quick upcycle is a great way to combine my loves of apartment gardening and not wasting stuff. It makes a cute, customizable, and lightweight planter that comes with its own drip tray - perfect for hanging or sitting on a windowsill!

Materials needed:
- Hummus container with lid (family/chef size work really well for this)
- Acrylic paint
- Paint brush or sponge
- Drill, or hammer and nail, or X-acto knife (or something else to punch holes in the bottom of the container)

Steps:
1. Eat hummus (duh)

2. Wash and dry hummus container and lid. You can peel off the label (recommended to make the paint job smoother), or leave it on and just cover with extra layers of paint.

3. Paint the outside of the container (and outside of lid, optional) with acrylic. You can do solid coats, stripes, marbling, colors, whatever you want. For the pictures here, I used a wide sponge brush to make a fast base coat in white, let dry for 2 hours, did a second base coat the same way, let dry overnight, then painted over the base with colors.

(In case you're not familiar with acrylic - make sure to wash out your brush/sponge when you're done using it. If the paint dries in there, then your brush/sponge is done for.)

4. Let the finished paint job dry overnight.

5. Use your drill (or hammer and nail, or whatever) to punch holes in the bottom of the container for drainage. Do NOT punch holes in your lid - this will be the drip tray that goes under the planter to catch drained water.

6. Plant something in your beautiful new planter and enjoy!

Crossed Double Crochet Sun Hats - Pattern Modification

Now that the sun is starting to be up longer and hotter every day, I wanted to make some a brimmed hat to keep my eyes shaded. I found this free pattern on The Lavender Chair (or check it out here on Ravelry), a wonderful site with tons of free crochet patterns for kids and adults. The hat is so cute! BUT the adult sized pattern is a bit too big for me so it blows off in the wind. And the child sized pattern is way too small for me.

Here are my pattern notes to size down the adult pattern. You'll still need to visit The Lavender Chair for the actual pattern though!

Fit: head circumference 21" with 1" negative ease so it holds onto your head

Abbreviations:
- st/sts = stitch/stitches
- hdc = half double crochet

Pattern Modifications:

Round 1: Hdc 9 in magic ring

Rounds 2-6 follow pattern instructions (round 6 ends with 54 sts)

Adjust round 7 to end up with 64 sts:
2x (2hdc in next st, 1hdc in next 5 sts)
3x (2hdc in next st, 1hdc in next 4 sts)
2x (2hdc in next st, 1hdc in next 5 sts)
3x (2hdc in next st, 1hdc in next 4 sts)

Follow pattern instructions for the rest of the hat. Here's another pic of the finished product (made in Bernat Handicrafter 100% Cotton).

Tutorial: Chainmaille Jewelry Made From Paper Clips

I love the look of chainmaille jewelry but wasn't sure if I was patient enough to make it -- especially because I didn't want to buy jump rings so I'd be cutting thousands of pieces myself. At the same time, I had LOTS of paper clips in cute colors, and I don't have that much paper to clip together. Well.... paper clips are made of wire.... and so are jump rings.... so I thought I would try out paper clip chainmaille.

I really love how my paper clip chain necklace turned out! I love it so much, I want to share how I made it so you can make your own :)
Difficulty level: 2/5
Time commitment: 3/5
Happiness with result: 5/5

On to the detailed instructions!
Step 1: Gather your materials. You will need lots of paper clips (my 30" necklace was made of jump rings sized such that I got 3 rings per paper clip, and I used ___ paper clips from a 1000-pack from Staples), good wire cutters, and a mandrel (I used a cheap bic ballpoint pen). This size of paper clip and mandrel gave a good jump ring size and inner/outer diameter pairing for the chain I made (full persian, keep reading for more details).

Step 2: Flatten each paper clip into a long, straight wire, then coil it around the non-writing end of your mandrel (pen). Try to get as many full circles around the mandrel as you can with each clip.

Step 3: Using your wire cutters, snip between the loops of the coil to create full circles (i.e. jump rings). I was able to get 3 jump rings per paper clip, with only a little bit of waste wire on both ends. Steps 2 and 3 take the majority of the time in this project.

Step 4: Weave your beautiful, colorful jump rings into something that makes you happy. I'm not an expert on this part, but I used a full persian chain tutorial from The Bead Man, which I found to be very clear and easy to follow. After adding a few rings, you get the pattern pretty quickly and the chain comes together pretty fast. Note: most chainmaillers will advise that you use flat pliers to open and close your jump rings. I used my fingers -- not the best strategy, but when I tried pliers they tore the rubber coating that gives the paper clips their color. Also I found that paper clips are soft enough to coil into rings and open/close by hand, but hard enough to hold their shape while being worn -- perfect!