Two different batches of cochineal dyeing resulted in a number of skeins – about 7 – in different shades, from pale to dark. All are gorgeous, and work together harmoniously. Thing is, what to knit up?? That is a lot of pink and rose!
What really amazes me is the amount of color I got out of a few grams of bugs. Van Stralen’s recipe was really simple, and the percentage method in metric was a piece of pie. Pushing the colors in different directions came from the final rinse in either ammonia or vinegar, with ammonia pushing more toward the blues and the vinegar more toward the yellows – or colder and warmer, to make it simple.
I let the skeins air-dry for a few days, and then pulled apart the outer yarn from that of the inner. Initially, there was some difference, but in the intervening weeks, the color seems to have evened out throughout the skeins. I expect, though, that any irregularities in the dyeing will show up when the yarn is knitted up.
8 g Cochineal, 4 g Tartaric Acid, Tin in Bath, Ammonia After BathAs Above - Vinegar After Bath4 g Cochineal, 2 g Tartaric Acid, Tin in BathCochineal Exhaust BathCochineal and Quercitron ExhaustCochineal and Quercitron Exhaust - Ammonia After BathCochineal and Quercitron Exhaust - Vinegar After Bath
Here are all the skeins in a row. The one on the very far left is a skein of this in a commercially dyed color. The remaining seven are the ones pictured above.
Commercially Dyed on Far Left - Seven to the Right are Cochineal
I have spent the last few weekends dyeing with quercitron and cochineal. I did not devote just one day to each color, but did both each day. The quercitron adventures yielded golden yarns and flammegarn, as well as exhaust baths I used with the exhaust baths of the cochineal. For both, I premordanted the yarn with alum and tartaric acid as I wanted to move toward reds and pinks, rather than the red violet or burgundy colors derived from unmordanted wool. I used handspun moorit shetland and commercially spun yarn for the cochineal.
First Dye Day
A couple of weeks ago, when I did the flammegarn, I did my first-ever dyeing with cochineal. Using the recommendations from Trudy van Stralen’s Indigo, Madder & Marigold, I set up my dye bath the day before I planned to dye. Tin Dissolved in WaterI ground up 5 g of cochineal, combining it with 2.5 g of tartaric acid, mixed them together, and let them soak overnight. The next day, as with the quercitron, I filtered out the bugs before starting the dye pot. Into this dye bath I put in 1 skein of commercially spun wool, weighing in at 50 g, and the handspun moorit, weighing in at 75 g. This was certainly more wool than the 10% cochineal / 5% tartaric acid weight van Stralen uses, but I wasn’t too worried. I wanted to see the results more than anything!
The wools were in the dye bath for 35 minutes (per van Stralen’s recipe). In the early minutes of immersion, the moorit and white took on orangish casts. These colors deepened the longer the yarn remained in the bath, moving closer toward red for the moorit, and pink for the white.
Moorit and White Wool - Before Tin Added to Bath
After 35 minutes, the yarn was removed, and 0.25% of yarn weight of tin added. Thus, 125 x 0.25% = .3125 g. I put in .3 according to my scale. Before adding the tin, the yarn was removed from the bath. The tin was weighed out in a bowl, water added, and then stirred into the dye pot. Tin is added to “bloom” colors toward the red side. Once done, the wools were returned to stew another five minutes, and removed. The moorit became a rather dull wine-red, and the white became a lovely pink color.
Moorit and White Wool - After Tin Added
Pulling the wools out of the dye bath was a pleasant surprise. Each color was harmonious with the other, intense without being displeasing.
Moorit and White Wool Just Out of the Dye Bath
The next step was to immerse the skeins in ammoniated water, to further push the colors toward magenta. The pictures show fairly well the before and after colorations.
Moorit and White Wool After Dipping in Ammoniated Water
The wool pulled up most of the color in the dye bath, but left behind was a pale orange. Another skein of white wool was placed in the exhaust, heated for 45 minutes, and then removed. It had a pale orangish color, but when placed into the ammoniated water, it turned a lovely sea shell pink.
Exhausted Cochineal BathWool Dyed in Exhaust Bath - Not Yet Dipped in Ammoniated Water
And you would think after all tihs activity I would be done, right? Nope! I had saved my filtered bugs and quercitron dregs, the quercitron dye bath, and the remainder of the exhausted cochineal. All these were warmed up together and yet another white skein immersed . . . but you will have to wait to see all the final colors in another installment.
Cochineal is a dye native to the Americas, in use by indigenous peoples long before the Spanish came. Once discovered, it became a source of wealth for the conquistadors, and a well-kept secret. It replaced or supplemented many other natural red dyes, such as madder root, used throughout Europe and Asia. As with quercitron, Edward Bancroft wrote extensively about cochineal in his books about dyeing.
Cochineal is derived from bugs that grow on cactus plants. They are collected, dried, and then ground prior to use as a dye. Trudy van Stralen, inIndigo, Madder & Marigold, recommends grinding them up as fine as flour, using an old coffee grinder dedicated to that purpose. I have a molcajete, which I used. The result was very finely powdered bugs. An interesting odor arises when grinding them – rather sour – which is not something I expected. Also, the rather pale bugs release a deep red color. The molcajete was easily cleaned by running water into it while grinding with the pestle. It was then set aside to dry.
Indian Collecting Cochineal from a Cactus with a Deer Tail
Using van Stralen’s percentages, I used 10% of the fiber weight (here, 100 g) for the bugs, and 5% of that for the tartaric acid in the dye bath. Thus, 10 g of ground bugs were used with 5 g of tartaric acid. These were mixed together, and set aside to soak overnight in warm water.
As with the quercitron, I filtered the cochineal solution prior to placing it in the dye pot. Because the cochineal is so finely ground, coffee filters are very slow. Van Stralen suggests old sheeting, which I don’t have, so what I do is piggy back the liquid into a number of filters. When the filtering process becomes very slow, I lift up the currently draining filter, slide a new one into the cone, and decant the liquid from the old filter into the new. I also continue to pour the overnight stock into each newer filter. This time I used about 5 filters, but the process was not particularly tedious. The used filters, bugs and all, are then set aside to be used for later dye sessions.
Bugs Being Ground in MolcajeteFinely Ground CochinealCochineal Set Up for Overnight Soak
The final result is a very clear liquid, with little particulate matter.
And if you have read a bit of what I have written about using quercitron for the flammegarn, you will recall that I set it up the night before. For today’s dye bath, I used 15 g of the powdered bark, soaked in warm water. This morning, I strained it out, and set aside the coffee filter to reuse later. I soaked the yarn to be dyed while the dye pot was heating up. The yarn was premordanted with alum and tartaric acid a week or so ago.
Filtering out the dye matter is important. The quercitron is finely ground, and if left loose in the dye pot with the yarn, it would easily get entangled in the yarn or fleece, and require a lot of time to remove it. Trust me, it’s not worth skipping this step! Coffee filters are ideal, and then the sludge may be set aside to dry out for reuse. I do this with some other dyes, such as cochineal and brazil wood, even though subsequent uses will be weaker.
I used my largest dye pot, even though I was dyeing a small amount of yarn. The reason for this is that the temperature of the dye bath is more easily controlled. This is critical to keep the dye toward the yellow, rather than brownish, side.
When I made theflammegarnlast weekend, I kept the yarn in the dye pot only about 20 minutes. Today, the yarn continued in the pot on the heat for an hour, and then was given time to rest in the cooling liquor. After that, it was dipped in a vinegar bath, which, as Bancroft notes, causes the dye to move toward yellow rather than toward a brownish or greenish color. While I have not tried it, Bancroft states that “tin, mixed with a decoction of the bark, produces and exceedingly beautiful lively yellow.” Perhaps an afterbath of tin would be worth trying.
In the pot is lace weight alpaca, and handspun white fleece. The final results are below.
As you can see, the alpaca took up the color more deeply – perhaps it is the nature of the fiber.
The Eastern Black Oak (quercus velutina) is a common, medium-sized to large oak of the eastern and midwestern United States, with a range that runs essentially east of the Mississippi. Other names for this tree are yellow oak, quercitron, yellow bark oak, or smooth bark oak. It grows best on moist, rich, well-drained soils, but can also grow in less optimal conditions. Its acorns take two years to mature, unlike those of other oaks, and are rather squat and round. It belongs to the family of red oaks.
Black oaks are medium to large trees, growing to a height of 80-100 feet, with trunks about 3 feet in diameter. The leaves have 7-9 lobes, and vary in length, from 4 to 10 inches. During the summer, the leaves are a crisp green color with paler shading underneath. In autumn, the leaves turn to red. The bark of young black oaks is smooth with light grey coloring, but with age, deep furrows develop and the bark becomes thicker and darker. The inner bark is an orangish-yellow color, and it is from this that the dye quercitron is derived.
According to Wikipedia,
Quercitron is a yellow dye obtained from the bark of the Eastern Black Oak (Quercus velutina), a fine forest tree indigenous in North America. The name is a shortened form of quercicitron, from Latin quercus, oak, and citron, lemon, and was invented by Dr. Edward Bancroft (1744-1821), who by act of parliament in 1785 was granted special privileges in regard to the importation and use of the substance. The dyestuff is prepared by grinding the bark in mills after it has been freed from its black epidermal layer, and sifting the product to separate the fibrous matter, the fine yellow powder which remains forming the quercitron of commerce. The ruddy-orange decoction of quercitron contains quercitannic acid, whence its use in tanning, and an active dyeing principle, quercitrin, C21H20O12.
Edward Bancroft was an interesting character, born in the mid-eighteenth century in pre-revolutionary America. During his lifetime he was – according to varying sources – apprenticed to a physician, a scientist, a writer, as well as a spy and double agent during the American Revolutionary War. He was a secretary to American Commission in Paris, working for Benjamin Franklin, as well as spying on the British, and for the British. (Whew! That must have been complicated!) After his life as a spy, his scientific side is credited with having discovered that the inner bark of the Eastern Black Oak, a tree found throughout the midwest and east coast, produced a colorfast and lightfast yellow dye which matched, and possibly surpassed, the common European yellow dyes of the time, such as weld and fustic. Bancroft received English and French patents giving him the right to import the bark, and this made him a rich man in the latter years of his life. Before his death in 1821, Bancroft had published a number of books on natural science, and on dyeing; it is on this latter subject he wrote two volumes, published in 1814: Experimental Researches Concerning the Philosophy of Permanent Colours.
The inner bark of quercus velutina is finely ground before being used as a dye. It is my hope that the harvesting of this bark is done sustainably, without damaging or killing the tree, unless it is harvested for its wood.
In the pot is lace weight alpaca, and handspun white fleece. The final results are below.
As you can see, the alpaca took up the color more deeply – perhaps it is the nature of the fiber.
Ink, Yarn & Beer 