Naturally Dyed and Printed Dress

I really enjoyed the process of making this dress for Eva two years ago so I thought I would make one for Olive. It took a few months, but here it is!

This time I added another step to the process - I started with white fabric and dyed it with avocado pits (and used alum as a mordant). I saved avocado pits and froze them until I had enough to do the fabric and a few skeins of yarn. I cut up the pits and put them in my dyeing slow cooker. I put the yarn into a laundry bag, but just threw the fabric in (it wasn't hard to get the bits of avocado off after).  I left it cooking for a few hours and then turned it off and left it for a day or so and then rinsed it off and hung it out. 

It's quite a nice pinky colour - the exact colour of this hellebore.

I originally planned to print with silver, but it wasn't working so well so then I mixed up a dark pink with red, white and splash of black.

Olive chose a stamp I carved last month and I randomly printed all over the fabric. 

The pattern is one of my favourites - the Madeline Dress Pattern (I think I could make it blindfolded now I've made so many!).
It really is satisfying to transform a white piece of fabric into a dress. It is really nice not to rush something and to enjoy every step of the process.
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