Mangosteen skins on cotton

Here is a dye sample with mangosteen skins. The mangosteen skins were hammered onto the cotton when they were still fresh.More about dyeing with mangosteen skins:

http://lizetfrijters.blogspot.com/2010/05/dyeing-with-mangosteen-skins.html

Dyeing with mangosteen skins

Recently the mangosteen season was at it's peak and we enjoyed eating the delicious fruit.

For those who don't know mangosteen, it is a tropical fruit, covered by a thick maroon skin and the white pieces inside, is the part that we eat.

I collected all the skins, knowing that they are very rich in tannin, which is of course interesting for natural dyeing.

I dried some of the skins for future use. We had so many though that I thought I needed to find another way of storage because of lack of space.

I first soaked the skins in a bucket with water. Than I boiled the skins to extract even more colour than in the cold water.

I decided to dye my white nuno felted dress in cotton and wool in this dyebath ( after removing the skins) and brought it to the boil. I did not use any mordant. Here is the result, still a bit pale; I might dye over it again later:

I now have stored the remaining liquid in our freezer and will see how that will be going.  I have put some mangosteen skins in the freezer and want to try the cold technique with them later.