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Gasp…Japanese Indigo in mid-March in the Hill Country

24 Mar

Truly unusual, indigo in mid-March. When I left on my travels in mid-January I noticed that, for the first time my Japanese Indigo had sprouted on its own. In January. I figured it would freeze back, but come mid-February it had grown well and was holding it own. I left the country again thinking our late February or early March freezes would put it in its place.

Well, I am home now, my husband did defend the plants thru one deep freeze (serious husband points) and the indigo is thriving, even blooming. Normally this time of year I would be turning the soil, enriching it, placing the drip hose and eyeing the seeds figuring out when to start the seed packs.

So, now what do I do? Let it continue to grow till it hits a foot and harvest it? I am tempted to do a pigment extraction. I usually dry & hold. Suggestions are welcome.

This is truly a bonus crop from last year’s seeds left in place. We still have cricket season in the near future. If I do see cricket chomping I will harvest. In the meantime I will dig out my seeds and prep my seedlings to drop in between these early bonus plants.

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Labels, Timing & Focus

9 Mar

Just a moment of thankfulness…that I am neurotic about marking my skeins with knots and making notes so I know which skein was submitted to what process. I also prep labels with the date mordanted and knots represented by dots so I may look at the label after the dye pot frenzy is done and add the dye process.  I usually have a plan written down so I don’t vear off in another direction while at the dye pot.

In November, between the holidays, I processed the last of my fresh indigo in a fructose and a traditional thio pot AND used my fresh cochineal AND tried to salvage my Hopi seeds AND mordanted some silk skeins. Skein craziness arises as one rinses and dries the skeins.  Wet skeins all look alike. Trust me, once you are done with the dye process you are happy to wash the pots, clean up the dye area for the winter season, rinse the skeins and walk away and let them dry.

It is March now…I am returning to the skeins and matching labels, pot notes and skeins. Yikes, confusion reigns until you match the dots on the labels to the skein knots and dye pot notes. How did I get this color?

Success!!  Now I need to reel some of this off and weave!  I worked on understanding lampas this Jan/Feb on my playcation with weaving friends so I do have focus and a goal.

 

 

 

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Cochineal (4 gram) on silk (93 gram)

15 Dec

Earlier this fall I collected cochineal as soon as it appeared in October. Last year I collected it after a couple of freezes. The big question, is there a color difference before or after a freeze. How motivated do I need to be to collect before a freeze?

Here is last year’s cochineal on wool/alpaca, the one on the left had cream of tarter (acid) added to push the color:
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Here is this year on silk before washing, no cream of tarter:

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I have to say I am not a fan of this bright fuchsia, but an indigo dip or an iron bath will sadden it for my eye. Part of this silk is also destined for a Texas madder root over dye. Here it is after rinsing and drying, color toned done some.   Can you believe only 4 grams of fresh cochineal gave this depth of color on 93 grams of silk?

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Some folks have asked me if I collect all at once, nope! I collect a little at a time until I have about half a pudding cup. I keep that cup secured in a jar on my dye patio to protect it from bug hungry marauding raccoons and wrens.

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The entire harvest goes into a slow simmer and is strained and processed at least 3 times thru my coffee filter. You can see how it gradually sinks as the web gives up the bug color.

I will say if one decides to collect your own cochineal, take your time, listen to the cactus wrens and watch out for the snakes!

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Cochineal web starting to appear!

2 Oct

Harley & I are making the unscientific observation that when the Lindheiemer Senna go to seed, the acorns start dropping and the cactus tunas fade, the cochineal white webs start to appear on the cactus pads. Let the cochineal scraping commence!
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How much color will 4 grams of Cochineal give?

31 Dec

Since it is too dry to collect lichen I’ve been pulling cochineal off of our opuntia cactus.

Cochineal web

Cochineal on Opuntia

Cochineal on Opuntia

We have prickly pear cactus.  I can’t be specific about the cactus, there are several kinds here in Blanco county, no thorns, thick thorns, long thorns.  I need to stare at the cactus more but here’s a link to all the types of cactus.  The Hibbitt’s family has given a good start on cactus id.

Meanwhile back to the cochineal….I’ve tried to leave cochineal on the cactus so I have some next year.  The first harvest yielded about 7 grams.  Figuring out how to harvest was quite amusing.   I went thru several tools.  Harley was very patient during his catwalks, while I scraped cactus, he sniffed for birds.

After collecting a small amount I was curious as to how much was “not enough”  so I started with 7 grams of fresh cochineal and web for 100 grams of substrate.  I used Lana D’Oro Cascade Yarn which in this case is 50% superfine alpaca and 50% wool.  Yike, .07% dyestuff for the yarn, would it work?  AND would the superfine alpaca portion hold up to the dye pot?  Well, first I needed to extract the color.  After reading thru some references and listening to suggestions to blog readers I went with my basic path of least resistance and did it the easy way.  Dump the dyestuff into my rainwater and simmer away.  I did about 3 extractions after simmering and sitting and filtering.

I went with two skeins so I could see how they deep a color they struck.  They were premordanted with alum sulfate.  Within 5 minutes I had a nice bright fuschia tone.  Wanting to see if I could push it to a different red I added cream of tarter to one of the skeins and it went towards a deeper rose.  Now this is impressive  for just 7 grams of color.  I don’t particularly like pastels so next time I’ll try more fresh cochineal and try a light iron dip to push it darker.   I can always muddy these skeins with iron also.  Stay tuned!  Ah!  And the alpaca/wool mix held up well to a dye pot.  Live is Good!

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Cochineal & Computer Glasses

2 Dec

When you are walking a tripod cat one has plenty of time to scrape cochineal off the cactus. I collected about 4 grams the first pass. We’ll get a couple more days of scraping and then see how much red I can pull. The question of the day is it an oxymoron to wish one had their computer glasses when scraping cochineal? The real question is how to filter the white webbing out of the dye bath.

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