Cabbage dye and Avocado dye

 

The results of my red cabbage dye experiment last month!

The yarn came out pretty variegated but that was my own fault.  I still like the colors and it's sort of a "sea glass" blue in person.  I might try the cabbage again with a couple of other tricks, such as using baking soda to change up the color.  My Mom *loves* the pale blue of the linen. She wants to paint her room that color!

Sadly, the avocado dye experiment last month didn't work out quite as well.  This was before I even rinsed the yarn fully.  Once it was fully rinsed, both the wool yarn and the linen fabric became....white again.  There really wasn't a drop of color that adhered to it.  

So, this time I decided to try a different method.  Rather than leaving three avocado pits in a jar of vinegar and water to make a dye, I just put 14 avocado pits in a big ole soup pot with a lot of water and simmered it.  

At first, it seemed like it was going the same way as the avocado vinegar experiment until I tested the PH of the water.  For some reason, it was only 5!  I added a lot of baking soda and got the PH at least up to 6.5.   

After simmering the pits for about 3 hours, I added the wool yarn (the same one I used in the previous because, seriously, zero color), and left that to simmer for an hour before I took it off the heat.  I then left the yarn in the dye pot overnight.  Below is what color it is now!

In person, it's a fabulous light mauve that I'm very happy with.  Also, the dye vat smells 100% better than the cabbage vat did.  :-)  I'll post pictures of it when it dries to see fully what color it ends up.