New crush: Botanical Threads

The next time you make guacamole, don't throw away the avocado seeds. 

Instead, leave the stones to dry on the window-sill, then heat them in a pan for up to three days, eventually extracting a colour that looks deep red. Soak some beautiful fabric in the red liquid, dipping it twice and leaving it for several days each time, adding soya milk to help the colours stick.

At the end of all this, if you're very lucky, your fabric will have turned a beautiful, rosy shade of pink. 

Alternatively, you could skip steps one through five and just buy some of the truly gorgeous organic dyed tea-towels, scarves and other items lovingly made this way by British lass Alicia, the talented gal behind the simple and ethical online shop Botanical Threads.  

Alicia studied fashion design but now works as a gardener, and this shop combines her two passions. Alongside the avocado seeds, she also uses rosemary, nettles, lavender, pomegranate peels and onion skins to create some truly stunning colours and patterns.

I could do with a set of those tea-towels to use as placemats. I think they'd be amazing at our table! What would you choose?