Dyeing Tea Towels with Natural Dyes

I've been in the need of new tea towels, especially to wipe up all the tea and water I sometimes spill as I brew tea.  Then just before Christmas I came across "flour sack towels" which were inexpensive lint free cotton towels and my mind started thinking...thinking of numerous DIY projects I could do!  The reason being is these are almost always white, a blank canvas pretty much.  I love white towels but sometimes having various colours or a print is also nice.

Interestingly enough someone on Instagram that LIKED one of my photos posted a picture of some lovely coloured towels dyed with various colours made from food...and a wonderful looking mauve made from avocado skins and seed!  Yes, mauve from avocado. She got the idea from the moneycrashers site which referenced another site, pioneer thinking.  

Anyway, I started reading more and started to think about using tea but of course the avocados were stuck in my head and I knew I had to experiment.... So, does the above towel look mauve?  

NO.  FAIL.  

More peach I would say but that is the colour I got when I used avocados...(sad face!).  Peach is still nice but not really the colour I was going for and in some lighting could look like a grimey towel unfortunately.  Not sure if the avocado has to be a certain ripeness or a certain varietal, but I should have known that the liquid just didn't look right. 

Back to colour experimentation.

I got my initial set of towels from Walmart, 5 for $7.  They are quite thin like muslin but actually soak up quite a bit of liquid and was great for wiping down a table.  Then I got a thicker set from Amazon, Aunt Martha's brand.  They cost quite a bit more per towel but are thicker which I think will be better for printing on...another bunch of experiments I'm planning.  Wish me luck!!