How-To: All Natural Pink Fabric Dye

Home decorating is definitely one of my most favorite hobbies. I love it and can sometimes get a little obsessed. Like when I was decorating my daughter’s nursery I just HAD to have a plain pink sheet because there’s already lots of white and other patterns in the room so I wanted something simple and that provided a pop of color. There were just a few problems. One: I wanted the sheet to be organic cotton; Two: I got it in my head that the little gal only liked these soft jersey cotton sheets (probably overthinking ha) and they only come in a natural cotton color; Three: It had to be the exact right pink and when I was shopping for sheets I couldn’t find anything that fit what I was looking for. So in the end I bought these natural cotton colored sheets and decided I’d try to dye them the color I was looking for. The only problem with that is that I didn’t want to use conventional dyes so I dug around and found that I could achieve the perfect pink with avocado pits! Surprisingly, it really did turn out to be the exact pink I was looking for and was really easy to do. I thought I’d share a quick tutorial on how I did it for anyone else in this design conundrum.

Supplies

A pre-washed piece of fabric made of natural fibers (ie: cotton, etc.)
Avocado Pits – I used 5, the more you use the more vibrant color you’ll get
A large pot big enough to submerge the fabric in
Enough water to cover the fabric (I used approximately 4 liters (or 144 oz or 18 cups) for 3/4 lb of fabric)
A wooden spoon for stirring (I used a slotted one as it made removing the pits from the dye easier)

The dye is all ready to go! Note the reduced water level, so that’s why you have to add extra.

Instructions

Prewash & dry the fabric
Gather avocado pits and wash them to remove any avocado debris. And they don’t have to be freshly gathered. I mean you can certainly use 5 avocados in one sitting for a huge bowl of guac or something (yum!), but I actually just collected the pits in the fridge until I had enough to use and it worked just as well as fresh pits would have.
Fill the pot with about double the amount of water to cover the fabric. A good amount of water will boil out so you need to start with extra. For a fitted baby crib sheet I used about 4 liters or 144 oz of water.
Bring water to a boil.
Drop pits into the water and boil for 20-40 minutes. I boiled my 5 pits for 40 minutes. The longer you boil the pits the deeper the hue you’ll get. The water will eventually turn a dark red color and that’s when you know it’s ready.
Turn off the heat and let the water cool for just a few minutes. Then remove the pits with a slotted spoon.
Submerge the fabric and make sure it’s all covered so the dye will cover the fabric evenly. As a side note, my pot was probably not totally big enough so I couldn’t stir the fabric fully. That resulted in slightly uneven dying of the fabric, but it doesn’t bother me at all.
Stir occasionally while fabric is submerged to make sure all parts of fabric get soaked in the dye.
Leave in the dye for anywhere from 2-24 hours. Again, the longer you leave it in the dye the more color will collect. I left my sheet in the dye overnight so nearly 24 hours. The fabric will appear very pink so you’ll know it’s collected dye. I just left mine that long for good measure, but it appeared pink enough after a couple of hours. (note: the color it appears in the pot of dye will be darker & more vibrant than the washed color since some of the dye will rinse out initially)
Once it’s reached the desired shade, rinse the fabric in cold water until the water runs clear or nearly clear.
Wash the fabric on it’s own in the washing machine (or you can hand wash if you’d rather). I used my regular laundry detergent on the normal wash cycle with warm water. It’s probably recommended to to a cold was cycle, but warm water didn’t affect the outcome for me. Then dry as normal or hang to dry. I’ve only washed the sheets once so I can’t confirm if they lose anymore color over time, but it seems pretty steadfast after one washing.
Voila! You have a beautiful light pink fabric!