Dyeing Gourds With Coffee

Add a contemporary design to your gourd with a traditional technique.

Gourds have a long and varied history of use in many cultures, ranging from the ceremonial to the practical. Used as musical instruments, canteens and cooking tools, gourds even played an important role in the antebellum Underground Railroad, when the song “Follow the Drinking Gourd” elevated the lowly plant to a code name for the Big Dipper constellation and the North Star. Crafters have found gourds to be a blank canvas for creating projects that can be both decorative and useful. Dyeing the patterns with coffee takes a little more time than other techniques, but it allows you to go back in history to a traditional means of personalizing your artwork.

Things You'll Need

• Fresh gourds that are still soft
• Damp cloth
• Tracing paper
• Waxed craft transfer paper
• Masking tape
• Pencil or stylus
• Craft knife
• Strong coffee

Instructions

1. Remove any dirt from the gourd with a damp cloth. If necessary, use a mild dish-washing detergent and water solution to clean the gourd’s surface.

2. Sketch or trace the pattern you want on the gourd onto the tracing paper.

3. Place the transfer paper and the pattern on the gourd. Secure the pattern to the gourd with masking tape.

4. Trace the pattern lines with a pencil or stylus to transfer them to the gourd’s surface. Remove the pattern paper and tape.

5. Cut away the top surface of the gourd with the craft knife. Remember that the areas you cut away will remain naturally light in color and the uncut areas will be dyed. Take care to cut only the thin skin of the gourd, rather than cutting into the thicker shell.

6. Cut an opening in the gourd. Placement of the opening will depend on how you plan to use the finished product.

7. Pour cooled, strong coffee into the gourd, filling it past any areas that you want to dye.

8. Place the gourd in a cool place for two to three weeks.

9. Pour out any remaining coffee and any of the soft flesh of the gourd that comes with it.

10. Peel away the remaining skin of the gourd, using a craft knife, to reveal the darkened areas.

11. Place the gourd in a cool, dry place until it becomes hard. This will probably take an additional week or more, depending on the air’s humidity levels.

Tips & Warnings

• The smell of the coffee and the soft insides of the gourd may become unpleasant, so you may want to find a place outside your house to store the gourd while the dye works.

• If the remaining skin is difficult to remove with the craft knife, lightly sand the surface with coarse sandpaper to loosen it.

• You can create variations in the depth of color by interrupting the process early to remove more of the skin from some areas. Pour out the coffee, cut away the new areas and then refill the gourd with fresh coffee. The dye will not “take” in any areas where you’ve removed the skin.

• Cutting too deeply into the surface of the gourd may cause it to rot, rather than to absorb the coffee dye. Be sure that you are only peeling away the top layer of the skin and not cutting into the actual shell of the fruit.

References

• The Gourd Reserve: Gourd History -- Native Americans and Their Use of Gourds
• Follow the Drinking Gourd: Follow the Drinking Gourd -- A Cultural History
• MAKE Magazine: Try Your Hand at Gourd Dyeing
• Hawaii Gourd Society: The Ni'ihau Method of Gourd Decoration