Small Dyeing-Avocado Skin

The skin from half an avocado, cut in two (no dyeing reason for cutting, that's what I do when I am opening an avocado to eat.)

This was rather unplanned, I just put the two pieces in a small pot --
(I confess it was my regular cooking pot - usually I am scrupulous about NOT using my food pots, but I didn't feel like getting out my dye pot which is huge and I wasn't doing anything but simmering an avocado skin...so I rationalized ) -
I simmered it for maybe 30 minutes, and there was a dark lovely ruby color to the water.
(And now I have to confess that I stuck two pieces of fabric - one silk, one cotton - into the pot, right along with the skins and let it sit an hour or so, with a stir once or twice)

I rinsed them with vinegar and then warm water and let them dry overnight.
I put the avocado water into a little jelly jar.
And thoroughly washed my pot and decided I MUST add a small pot to my dye-dedicated cookware.


 Here is the jar of ruby avocado water, with the morning sun shining through.

In the morning, I added a teeny bit of alum to the jar. And it darkened considerably, became a very dark maroon. Added smaller silk and cotton squares.

Here are the results.

SILK

on the left, without alum, with skins left in pot.

on the right, with alum

COTTON

on the left, without alum, with skins left in pot.

on the right, with alum

I think I am going to focus on experimenting with avocado. I have a nice lot of skins saved in the freezer as well as seeds. And I've been gathering other mordants to try.
Much to 'what if..?" with.