A Different Space: The great cochineal saga

Cochineal wasn't quite as much of a pain in the ass (at least not it by itself) as all the recipes seemed to allude to. It was all the stuff I was adding to the cochineal that made me want to throw things!! Wearing a respirator all day sent me out for the ingredients for raspberry vodka tonics, so yeah... It was a long day.

I will start, though, with a set of cutely balled yarn. Left to right: Madder, Goldenrod, Gladiolus.

Working from the concentrate I made the other day (please see cochineal parts 1&2).
I began with the simplest cochineal recipe-- Alum. I deposited my alum mordanted swatches and skeins into the cochineal bath and let it simmer 30min. And it came out this gorgeous fuchsia! I love it!

Then I went to the first acid bath I did. I cooked my yarn in a bath of ph5 (using vinegar) for 30min. Then I rung it out and placed it directly into a hot bath of half water half lemon juice (citric acid) and left it for 2 hours. Then I rinsed it out. This mostly gave me pale pinks and some orangy corals.

Then I went for something called "Fire Scarlet," which is cochineal with (for the small size of my dye bath) 1/2oz Tin + 1/2tsp Cream of Tarter + a teeny tiny bit of Turmeric (remember it's STRONG), simmered for an hour, rinsed out fully, and added to yet another cochineal bath (weaker this time) for 15minutes. It all comes out this beautiful red-orange, except for the alum mordanted wool skein which came out a really true beautiful red. (This bath gave me a headache because I was outside with it for about 2 minutes without my respirator, thinking that the fan I had blowing the fumes away from me over at my clothes line would be enough to protect me, which it wasn't.)

Then came the iron bath. 1tsp ferrous sulfate (Iron) + a pinch of iron oxide made a strong iron bath that I added cochineal dye to and then yarn, cooked it 30min (I was worried it was going to get too dark on the cotton). I rinsed it all out and added anything that was too pale/brown to a pale cochineal bath until it was brightened (about 10-15 min). This gave me a range of magentas (blue-pinks) and purples.

Then came the copper bath... may I mention how much I dislike doing this one? It's fumey and awful and I felt like even through my respirator I could still smell it. However, worth doing anyway. From the copper bath I got a range of lavenders!! It was alum mordanted yarn in the copper bath with 1/2tsp copper and a splash of vinegar, cooked 30min and removed from the bath to cool. I then added a skein of soymilked cotton and cooked it another 20 before the bath was exhausted.

Then came washing soda/soda ash. Everything I turned up said to change the ph to a ph11 and cook an hour. I just let it sit overnight because I didn't think the color was strong enough after that on the wool. Well it turns out that, as I was washing out this morning, my yarn had basically melted back into fibers that I maybe could have felted with but were mostly slimy..... So next time I think I'll dye it 30min with alum and do a ph11 modifier for 15min at the end instead. Washing soda gave me very pale purple-pinks, and a salmon on the wool.

Last came the Tannic Acid bath, where I added a 1/2tsp of tannic acid crystals (much stronger than cream of tarter, a derivative) to a cochineal bath, which immediately changed it's ph from ph7 to ph1 and changed it's color from fuchsia to a red-orange color. I soaked the yarn a little over 30min, then brought it to a boil and simmered it about 5 before pulling it back off the heat to just sit overnight. I was, truthfully, really really done with dyeing at this point, but I also liked the color the yarn had at that moment and I didn't want to ruin it by boiling it. Letting it sit abotu 24hrs gave me a beautiful dark pink-orangy coral color on my wool yarn, and the rest of my swatches had lighter corals and pale pinks.