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!

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/

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?

Tulip Sun Dye

I started a sun dye jar on July 1 with a container of pink tulip petals that I gathered earlier this summer (don't worry, I didn't go pick my neighbors' flowers, I collected petals that had already fallen on the ground from a park with thousands of flowers so that I could get enough). They were in my freezer for about two months while I worked on other things, but now they've been soaking for 1 1/2 weeks in a solution of 1/2 cup rubbing alcohol and 8 cups water. The jar is on my sunniest windowsill (inside, because from my apartment on the 20th floor there isn't a balcony or safe way to hang these on the outside of the window). This is what the jar looked like earlier this afternoon:

After the picture above, I strained out the remaining mushy petal scraps and added the yarn to the jar. I'm testing two yarns: 100% cotton (Bernat Handicrafter Cotton) and 100% wool (Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool).

Here is the jar after the yarn was added:

And here is the soggy petal mess that came out of the jar (lovely, right? smelled great too...):

I'm going to let the sun dye jar + yarn sit in the sunny window until the end of August. I'll update then with pictures of the results!