DIY Avocado Dyed Fabric Wrapping
Fabric wrapping is such a lovely and unusual way to present gifts. It’s also brilliantly thrifty way of recycling an old piece of fabric, and most importantly it can be re-used too. I’ve teamed up with the lovely Hannah Bullivant again, who is going to show you how to create the prettiest shade of pink using avocado stones as fabric dye. WHO KNEW! Finally all those servings of avocados on toast are going to pay off…
Materials
Natural fibres (I used an old 100% cotton duvet cover, ripped in to squares)
Avocado stones and skins (I used 6 stones and 2 skins for one king size duvet cover.
A large pan and/or a bucket big enough for your fabric.
NB. You will also need something to set the colour if you intend to put this in the washing machine (for napkins etc).
Technique
1. Rinse off stones and scrape out skins.
2. Bring a large pan of water to the boil with your avocado bits in, and let it boil for about 40 minutes, or until the water has started to look a nice deep pink colour.
3. Strain the bits out of the water, then dunk the fabric in.
4. Let it soak in the dye bath for as little as 2 hours and as long as 2 or 3 days- experiment to get the right shade of pink. I did 3 different soak times. 2 hours, 6 hours and 2 days and love all the different shades of pink.
5. If you intend to wash the fabric in the washing machine you will need to set it - I haven’t done this as I am using the fabric for wrapping presents.
To Wrap Your Gifts
You can use your fabric just like normal paper. Only cut the exact right amount of fabric you’ll need to keep it neat (just like paper!) Sellotape and Washi tape work on the fabric too. Or alternatively, use the knot technique.
1. Place your object at an angle on your fabric. Experiment with how much fabric to use. A smaller amount will lead to a nice small neat knot. A larger amount of fabric will mean a bigger, blousier bow. You will probably have to faff a bit to find the right size square of fabric for your gift. Don’t be afraid of starting again if it’s not looking right.
2. Roll your object neatly in to the fabric, at a right angle. starting from one of the corners. You should end up with a tube shape with your object in the middle.
3. Gather up the excess fabric on either end of the tube.
4. Then knot it twice.
5. Decorate with gift tags or tassels or ribbon (Tassel gift tags, sequin ribbon and gold ribbon all from Ocado)
Discover our previous post here.
