A quick debrief for you today of a natural dying project in a shibori style using avocados.
I’d wanted to try an avocado dye for a while, and this was my second attempt on this particular piece of fabric. There will probably need to be a lot more attempts before I can manage to get the colour I was hoping for.
The fabric was an old cotton sheet. Loving to reuse items and having such a large bit of fabric I decided to try a shibori style dye on it. I folded the sheet into a triangle, and there it sat for months.
The first dye failed to take very well. Being someone who has dyed before I thought I knew how it went, but avocados are different and it needed a mordant. I had no idea what that was. In the end I settled on a soy milk soak.
There’s plenty of tutorials on this online. This is not going to be a helpful addition to that knowledge.
After the fabric had been in the dye it did look like more of the colour had taken than it had, but after a wash and dry it really was a very subtle patterning.
I persisted and sewed up a dress using the Style Arc Hope dress as a guide. I’d used this pattern a few times and was generally happy with the fit, but this time I wanted to try a short sleeve. Though I also didn’t want to spend a lot of time on it. Big mistake.
Overall I wasn’t happy with the look. I tried it on anyway and on it’s first wear the fabric tore. Being a reused piece of fabric it was too fragile in a few parts.
Overall this project was a failure at every step.
I’m considering making a shirt using just the stronger parts. Time will tell.
