Learning New Skills: Dyeing With Avocado Pits

I've been reading about natural dyeing and decided to try out dyeing with avacado pits. You guys! This is seriously one of the easiest DIYs and it is perfect for a beginner! I was a little intimidated at first, but it couldn't have been easier. I collected pits over a couple of months. I put some in a bag in the freezer and some pits I would wrap in a damp paper towel to try to grow some plants (jury is still out on that process). I had a couple free hours one Saturday morning and started a boiling pot of avocado pits.

1. Boil pot of water and 10ish avocado pits for about 30 minutes... or until water is dark red.

2. Remove avacado pits, reduce heat to a simmer, and put in fabric. 

3. Let fabric sit for about 10 minutes to achieve blush color. I let the second batch of fabric sit a couple minutes longer so it is slightly pinker.

Some tutorials say to wash with specific types of soap. I just rinsed with cold water and hung it to dry.

This was such an easy DIY! I have started collecting avocado pits again and wracking my brain for what else I can dye.

Learning New Skills : Embroidery

My aunt makes the cutest embroidered hand towels (you can see her Santa one in my holiday post) and this has been a craft I've been wanting to learn lately, so I asked her to teach me. She taught me to cross stitch when I was little, so I remember a bit from that. We picked up some supplies and she showed me some of the basic stitches to get me started. My aunt chuckled at the retro themed patterns I picked out (this includes a cassette tape, roller skates, and much more), but I knew this radio would be perfect for Ben. After a bit of practicing the basic stitches, I got to work.

This piece probably could have been done at this point, but I also really love embroidery art that is completely filled in so I kept going. I started to fill some of the smaller pieces. I liked how it was progressing so I just went ahead and filled in everything I could.

Once I could see the end in sight, I hunkered down and finished up the piece while the girls were watching a movie (probably Incredibles 2 again). I'm still working on finding the right framing solution for this, but it is fun to have the piece finished.

I'm going to take a little break before my next piece, but I love perusing through #modernembroidery to see some other fun projects. Also, check out one of my favorite embroidery artists Danielle Clough on Instagram