Avocado T-shirt Dye

I had some avocado pits & skins sitting in my freezer, and a couple of old T-shirts that had gotten too dingy and stained to wear, so this weekend I decided to try putting the two together!

 

I scrubbed the avocado pieces clean and put them into a crock pot with 7 cups of tap water. I let them simmer most of the afternoon and evening (about 10 hours), and then let them cool in the crockpot overnight.

This morning I strained out the dye bath and put it into a big pot, adding some more water so that the T-shirts would have room to move around. I soaked the T-shirts in hot water and spun them out in my spin dryer so they were just damp.

I decided that I would dye one loose in the water, and tie the other one up for tie-dye. I chose a spiral pattern, using these instructions.

I put the shirts in at 9:30 a.m. and let them simmer all day. I noticed pretty quickly that the underarms of the unbundled shirt was taking up WAY more dye than the rest! It must be from the sweat and antiperspirant present in the fabric. It was a little bit alarming, but made sense.

At 4:00 p.m. I took the shirts out of the water and rinsed them well. They both turned a pleasant light pink, except for the underarms on the plain shirt, which were a dark terra cotta colour! I'm not sure what I can use that shirt for, other than a painting shirt or a way to accentuate my armpits, but it was on its way to the rag bin anyway, so nothing lost!

The tie-dye spiral was subtle but gave a very nice mottled effect that did camouflage the T-shirt's old stains quite well. If I did this again I'd probably do a tie-dye pattern. It was a lot of fun.

The numbers:

• Weight of 100% cotton T-shirt: about 105 grams each/210 grams total
• Weight of dye stuff: used the frozen pits and skins of 8 avocadoes: total weight approximately 480 grams fresh, 144 grams dried
• WOF: 1 fabric:1.4 dye ratio
• Simmered dye bath for 8 hours on high in crockpot, then turned it off and let cool overnight.
• Let shirts simmer in dye bath for about 6.5 hours.
• Water used: tap water, pH approximately 7.9
• In general: The skin & pit of one avocado weighs 60 grams fresh, and about 18 grams dried

 

 

 

Comments

[Janice Murphy]

So,you could actually draw designs with aluminum antipersperant to further distract from any stains.

[Christine]

No mordant used! My understanding is that avocado is a tannin-based dye, so doesn't require a mordant. BUT, I did note that aluminum anti-perspirant caused the dye take-up to be much stronger under the arms than the other areas of the shirt. I experimented with this by making a stripe across the front of the shirt with anti-perspirant, then putting the shirt back in the dyebath and it totally worked!

[Carolyn Penny]

Any mordant used?
Just wondering.....

C. Penny