Botanical Dye Tutorial: Dyeing with Avocados

DIY: Dye your shirt with avocados

For Fashion Revolution Week, which is currently taking place globally, we are collaborating with nachhaltig_angezogen and have come up with something nice for you: a self-dyed shirt with avocado peels and pits.
You probably have one or two items of clothing at home that you don't like wearing so much anymore. How about giving your boring shirt a new look with botanical dyes? I'm a big fan of avocados. The best part is that you only need the peels and seeds, the waste products, and you can create beautiful pink tones with them. Combined with iron sulfate as a shader, you can achieve gray tones. We opted for a mix of both dyes and the shibori folding technique. Here's our avocado tutorial for you—give it a try.

Preparation

Choosing the right fabrics is crucial when dyeing with natural dyes. The fabrics must be 100% natural, otherwise botanical dyeing won't work. You probably have an old white shirt at home that's made of 100% natural fibers. This could be cotton or linen, for example. The first step is to wash your old garment with a pH-neutral detergent to remove any oil, starch, or other substances left on the fabric during manufacturing. You can learn more about the individual fabric types and preparation here.
To ensure your natural dyes remain durable and are lightfast and washfast, you'll need to mordant your shirt beforehand. We pretreated our T-shirt with oak gall, soda, and alum. You can find our mordant recipe for cellulose fibers here. Mordant is the first preparatory step before you can begin dyeing.

This is what you need:

You need the following ingredients to dye your shirt naturally with avocados

    • For the stain: oak gall powder, alum and washing soda ( see recipe )
    • 1 T-shirt made of 100% natural material. This could be an old white cotton shirt that you no longer wear.
    • Dried avocado peels and seeds (which together weigh as much as your shirt).
    • 1 tsp iron sulfate
    • 1 stainless steel pot
    • 1 old container/plastic bucket (that you won't use for cooking again)
    • 1 scale
    • Cotton cord or rubber bands
    • Gloves

    Recipe - how to dye your avocado shirt

    1. For a beautiful, deep pink, you'll need 100% of your fabric weight in avocado peels and pits. To do this, first weigh your washed and dyed shirt while it's dry. Then, weigh the appropriate amount of avocados.
    2. Fill a pot with approximately 4 liters of water, add your avocado peels and pits, and heat your avocado bath. Stir well and make sure your dyeing materials are covered with water. Now you can let your dye bath simmer gently for 30-60 minutes. Add a little more water if necessary.
    3. Once your avocado bath has reached a beautiful pink hue after cooking, you can use a sieve to pour out the peel and seeds. After filtering, return the dye bath to the pot. Your avocado dye bath is ready! Avocado dye bath

    4. Create patterns with the Shibori technique

      Perhaps you've heard of the Japanese dyeing and folding technique? Simply put, shibori is the Japanese version of batik. Only much more extensive and with a whole host of possibilities. Shibori is derived from the Japanese word "shiboru," meaning something like "to press" or "to press." Where a fabric is folded, tied, or pressed, it won't absorb dye. This creates truly wonderful patterns. For our shirt, we chose a simple technique to create a beautiful, geometric pattern. It's really easy to do.
    5. Fold your shirt from bottom to top like an accordion. Then tie your long fabric bundle with cotton string or rubber bands at intervals of about 3 cm. Your fabric bundle is ready.
    6. Now place the shirt in your avocado dye bath. Keep the dye bath warm for one hour. Then turn off the heat and let the fabric cool. You can achieve a deeper color by letting your shirt soak in the avocado bath overnight.
    7. The next morning, it's time to unpack: Wring out your shirt and remove the cotton strings or rubber bands. Do you see the beautiful geometric pattern in shades of pink? T-shirt dyed with avocados and the Shibori technique
    8. In the second step, I treated the lower third of the shirt with iron sulfate. This shader changes the pH of the colors, creating a nice gray tone.
    9. Before dipping in iron, I used the shibori technique again. This time in a different direction. Fold your shirt from right to left like an accordion. Then tie it off again with cotton string or rubber bands at intervals of about 3 cm.
    10. Dissolve 1 teaspoon of ferrous sulfate in water. Be sure to use an old container that you will never reuse in the kitchen. Iron is harmless in small amounts, but it shouldn't come into contact with food. To protect my skin, I always wear gloves when experimenting with iron.
    11. Now dip the bottom third of your shirt into your iron solution. Let it soak for about 10 minutes and then remove it. You'll now see the beautiful gray tone.
    12. Remove the tree strings or rubber bands again – and your self-dyed avocado shirt is ready! Then wash your shirt with pH-neutral detergent by hand or in the washing machine using the handwash program at a maximum of 30°C.
      Finished T-shirt dyed with avocados, iron sulfate and the Shibori technique

    We hope you enjoy your new shirt and that you enjoy dyeing with natural dyes as much as we do. Perhaps you'd like to try dyeing with red onion skins next? Then check out our Botanical Dye Tutorial: Red Onion Skins .