still going strong

the solar dyed avocado took up about the same amount of dye as heating it on the stove in the second bath, so that's interesting. there seams to be a significant amount of dyestuff in the avocado, so it's a good thing that i've been saving up the skins.

the shibori experiment went well, i'm really enjoying the calla lily-like patterning of the second piece (some bead work to enhance it would be pretty, or possibly some metallic thread embroidery). i will set these pieces aside and work on them more later.

underneath

i'm really enjoying my experiments with natural dyestuffs. the exhaust baths are incredible! the first soak in the avocado skins gave me a cool medium pink, but when i reused the dyebath a second time the cloth became a warm pinky peach, mostly pale in saturation.

with the red onion skins the first fiber batch came out a yellow green shade, and the second dyebath was a rich olive green. i wasn't able to reuse the marigold dyebath, as i poured it down the drain foolishly. but i'm hard at work collecting every bloom my little plant throws forth!

i wonder what would happen if i were to change the ph of the dyebath? i must pick up ph strips when i go grocery shopping again, and do some reading research. i would also like to collect more local dyestuffs. i'm on the lookout for sumac berries (which aren't ready yet), eucalyptus leaves, and anything else that would yield somewhat colorful material. i would love to dye some purples, for instance. anyone in the south east have any good sources or plants i whould look out for?

second baths

i dreamt of dyeing an ombre swatch before going to sleep the other night. so the following day, i used the leftover dye baths from my previous experiments, the avocado and the red onion skin. i noticed something about the finished swatch; the colors were not the same as my first samples. so i gathered up some swatches of material, and did some more dyeing.

the second red onion dyebath produced an olive green instead of the bright chartreuse. i rather like this color as well. the fabric took the dye up rather quick, same as the first bath, so perhaps i can get a third dyeing out of it yet.

the avocado bath also produced a color shift. the results from the first bath was a cool medium pink, but the second gave me a lighter warm peachy pink, very pretty. i let it simmer for over an hour, and the color did not deepen much from the swatches i pulled out after half an hour; so perhaps the bath is exhausted.