Trudy van Stralen – Ink, Yarn & Beer

The Final Post

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 Bath

4 g Cochineal, 2 g Tartaric Acid, Tin in Bath

Cochineal and Quercitron Exhaust - Ammonia After Bath

Cochineal 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

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, in Indigo, 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.

The final result is a very clear liquid, with little particulate matter.

Tag: Trudy van Stralen

Cochineal, iii

Cochineal, i