Gah, trying to educate gallery managers on natural dyes is a never ending conversation. My latest rug came home with me instead if hanging in the gallery because of color issues. One just had to keep educating!
In the meantime, this handwoven natural dye rug is available direct from the weaver and hand dyer.
“River Running Dry”
50″x30″
$800 + tax/shipping. Leicester Longwool, natural dyes as indicated below.
Ready to hang!
As we start 2015 I am creating collage photos of the dye plants and the finished product in one photo. Quite a composition challenge! Here is a start! Happy New Year to all!
This is a silk shawl donation for our public library here in Johnson City, Texas coming up in March. It is screen printed with an iron mordant and dipped in our Texas Persimmon.
And these are some large silk wraps dipped in my local native or garden grown dye stuff. Starting top left and working clockwise…..the source colors are Texas persimmon, Texas red madder root, Japanese indigo and teloschistes exilis, slender orange bush lichen.
These silk wraps will be heading to our local art gallery, Texcetera
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:
Here is this year on silk before washing, no cream of tarter:
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?
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.
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!
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!
John Marshall, a fabulous art teacher, introduced me to the book, Madder Red: A History of Luxury and Trade by Robert Chencier
http://www.amazon.com/Madder-Red-History-Luxury-Caucasus/dp/0700712593
I can’t afford a printed copy but I did find a digital copy. I do grow madder root here in the Hill Country. Possibly I am late to the party for this book but I am having great fun reading about madder cultivation in Russia, Eastern Europe, France & the lowlands and the economic turmoil surrounding it in the 1600, 1700 & 1800 leading up to the aniline dye market trump. I find it fascinating that it was grown in the local vineyards. Hmmm, perhaps our wine vintners need another long term cash crop.
It is still early in my reading so I haven’t hit the recipe section yet. If you grow madder see if you can find it via library loan. It is a decent read. I’ll report back if I glean any decent madder recipes but I am getting a great old world ag education in madder root cultivation and economics.
Two of my madder beds have hit 4 and 5 years old and I’ll be digging them up this fall. Can’t wait to see if I get the richer purple reds on silk from my older roots compared to the one year old red orange I got from an earlier harvest.
Interested in helping me dig? Let me know. I can trade madder seeds, lichen or madder shoots for labor. I’ll probably harvest in late October here in the Texas Hill Country.
I have lots of lichen, persimmon and weld dyeing to report on but have been sidetracked by hot temps, family matters & travel. And this book!
I haven’t posted lately as I have not been on the dye patio. The drought has dragged on and we’ve had a slight break this week with almost 6 inches of rain. I’ve been reluctant to run dye pots with the slim chances of rain. I have been tending the dye plant garden with some success and a major failure, more on that in another post.
Now, my weld has come into blossom and is going from bloom to seed, it is time to harvest it and run some brilliant yellows. Since I’m not a yellow fan these skeins are destined for over dyes with indigo and iron for greens.
And the persimmon is coming along with the fruit forming and another great crop coming on line.
I plan to experiment with both the weld and persimmon dye stocks and try to precipitate the color out with sodium carbonate in order to store the extract long term. More on that if I can made it work.
My shoulder surgery went well and after a year my arm is working normally. I have spent more time in the weaving studio to finish old projects and plan new ones. Here are some old and new scarves done with the natural dye yarns.
I’ve found I am either on a dye path or a weave path. It is difficult to run both side by side. So, eventually, the dyestuff harvest will determine the schedule and I’ll be back on the dye patio at the dye pots. So…see you soon when I am back at the dye patio.
After 20-30 mph winds one day, marble size hail another day and a driving rain on a different day it is a great morning to harvest the windfall lichens. Especially with the am humidity and mist the lichen easily peels of the branches instead of crumbling in the dry weather.
Now if I could only get Harley the tripod cat to go near the trees where the lichen windfall is located!
Since it is too dry to collect lichen I’ve been pulling cochineal off of our opuntia cactus.
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!
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.
It’s a windy, cold & wet day here in the Hill Country, perfect for harvesting windfall lichen. I can finally bend over to pick up lichen without my shoulder feeling like it will fall off. Yahoo! My dye hoist has been installed on the dye patio. Once the sun comes out this week I’ll post some photos. Back to lichen gathering. See how the grey glows against the grasses?
debmcclintock 
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