Dying!

I have been going a little nuts because the dye vat of indigo is stalled out. I need to put the whole mess in a metal container and warm it for a while. I don't want to because it is going to smell awful. I did get a huge container of soda ash from the pool supply place. I cannot say it was cheaper, but I think it may be.

Instead of indigo, today is cochineal. I am working on the colors and seeing what will come of what I am doing. I started with an old sideless made of unknown material. I decided to use this as my test while I wait for one cotton broadcloth to dye and some silk to mordant. Alum is the mordant and I am doing an amonia rinse on the unknown fabric. I mean seriously, no big deal if this doesn't look great.

I started with my dye pot which was 4 ounces of ground bugs that were fermented for about 2 weeks. I intended to dye things within a day but my schedule got busy and I needed the big pot for other things. I plunked my disgusting blend of bugs into a strainer and kept all their nasty little bodies for more dying later.

I can see they will have more life in them. The instructions for cochineal often mention they can be reused. They just have to be dried throughly and bagged. They will not be as strong, but as you can see here, they have plent of life left in them. Or dye that is, since they are especially dead after having been pried from their host prickly pear, dried, ground, boiled, fermented and drained.

One of my problems is this is a late period dye that I will be using on early period clothing. I am not too concerned as that only will be of concern to very informed folks. I am going to be embroidering on scraps of this dye lot for other dresses and probably will put a bit of wool embrodiery on the under dress I am doing for this particular piece.

I am also using rubber gloves to handle the material. This stuff is really chapping and drying out my hands. I think it is the alum. I am also handling very hot material as I am treating it twice. The fabric is simmered in the alum mordant and then I am swapping it right into the vat of cochineal.

Here is the fabric in the vat.

Notice the deep, rose color? This is after about 10 minutes in the cochineal solution. It is developing and interesting color that I am very fond of, so I couldn't be more pleased.

This particular piece is two different fabrics. They both appear to be a cotton/polyester blend. I am not sure how well it will take the dye, but that is what experiments are about. The colors really changed by the time I took them out of the vat. You can see the difference in the colors of the two fabrics.








Then I put it through an amonia rinse. This is to set and alter the final color. I did this in the washing machine and now it is showing every little mistake in my dying. You really have to get in there and turn everything and rotate the fabric for even coverage. The end result wasn't quite as pretty as what I pulled out of the dye vat. You can see the mistakes and it isn't nearly as dark.

It isn't horrible though and it has far more character. The distinction between the fabrics is blatant though. I will take pictures of it on me after I find something to put on the sides.