Friday Funk

In search of the fabled dye, I boiled down some mangosteen rinds. The usual method for extracting dye from plants is to pile the plant material in a nonreactive pot, add water to cover, and boil hard for a long time. Alas, in no time at all the mangosteen rinds given this treatment began to smell funky, like... I dunno, like a combination of dank basement, wet newspaper, and steamed banana leaves.



The resulting liquid was neither purple-black nor saffron yellow, but a turbid coral pink. Maybe another extraction method is needed, perhaps using just the outer peel and not the pith or perhaps using alcohol instead of water. However that may be, this stuff doesn't seem very effective as a dye. Beet juice is 'way more persistent. Oh well.

I forget who at MY SnB was looking for Interweave Knits Summer 2003, but I indeed have two copies and am willing to let one go.



Whoever you are, if you want it, let me know by next Friday.