- Refurbished: A wooden stool gets a New Mexico makeover

I've mentioned our favorite antique store, By the Bridge in Wimberley many times ... with good reason. Jill Jones has an ever-changing array of funky stuff priced to sell.

Case in point is this stool I got for $15 ... it wasn't much to look at, but it fit perfectly under the vanity in the master bath that we use as a painting station because it gets such great light.

Upon our return, Don decided to sand it down, restain the legs, and milk paint the top in some of the colors that washed through the five days we spent in Santa Fe.

He also burned Zia sun symbols into the edges ... perfect reminders of the sunrise to sunset good times we had at the Ravens Ridge B&B (thanks to our daughters, who came up with the best birthday present ever).

- Time lapse: Watching cochineal develop

I tried something different today: sequentially adding pictures of my cochineal dye experiment to document progress in (sorta) real time. This final top photo is where I ended up ... which will be all for today. Tomorrow, after all the cloth has thoroughly dried, I will wash it and post the results. In truth, the colors are very pastel, and I do have some thoughts about that ... but I'm very pleased with this first attempt at homegrown cochineal dyeing.

One final pass
Second dye trial with "tired" cochineal tea and freshly mordanted cloth (alum + tap water)

2 hours after immersion
Top half: #1 Alum (unrinsed)
Bottom half: #2 Alum + cream of tartar (unrinsed)
Note original scraps of cloth on the mid-left edge of picture

2 hours after immersion
Top half: #3 Alum + lemon juice
Bottom half: #4 Alum + steel wire and rusty nails
Note original scraps of cloth on the mid-left edge of picture

1 hour after immersion
Note addition of new cloth to the right mordanted in alum and tap water

30 minutes after immersion
with recent addition of rusty nails to #4

5 minutes after immersion
#1 Alum only
#2 Alum + cream of tartar
#3 Alum + lemon juice
#4 Alum + steel wire
Original piece of yellow linen used to collect cochineal beetles (unmordanted)

Recap of how it was all put together:

I removed the alum mordanted cloth (still wet) from the canning jars and staged it in bowls. Then I mixed up three additives:  1 tsp. cream of tartar in distilled water, 1/2 lemon freshly squeezed, and steel wire in distilled water. I also cadged a metal sink strainer from the kitchen ...

After heating up the cochineal tea (which had an indescribable, but not unpleasant aroma), I strained it into each jar ...

then added the cloth and mixed in each additive (leaving the first jar unadulterated as a control) ...

5 minutes after immersion
#1 Alum only
#2 Alum + cream of tartar
#3 Alum + lemon juice
#4 Alum + steel wire
Original piece of yellow linen used to collect cochineal beetles (unmordanted)

Color happened immediately, but the steel wire jar didn't seem to be doing much, so I looked around Don's work area for some rustier stuff ...

Grody metal thing found on our road trip ... too big

Assorted Junkology bits, tempting, but ...

That's it ... in the upper right hand corner ... tiny rusted nails!!

Success! Now I'm going to do some housework to keep me occupied so I stop messing with things. Whenever I get the urge, I'll post the most recent result at the top of this post.

- Meet the beetles: Cochineal dyeing

I need to say up front that tiny cochineal beetles did lose their lives in the pursuit of this latest natural dye experiment. Encased in waxy white webbing and tiny in size, it was easy to pretend that I wasn't doing anything untoward ... especially since their habitation was ultimately destined to be burned ...

But it did feel a little creepy. However, putting aside my moral scruples I read up on how a local blogger gathers cochineal beetles and then made up my own way (after all, when have I ever followed a recipe?)

Taking a vintage knife with a flexible blade and a bit of linen, I went out and started to scrape little bits of white off of prickly pear (Opuntia) cactus pads. The beetles were well protected, usually hunkered down on the underside of a cactus spine, presumably to deter birds from eating them.

As I repeatedly wiped the blade off on the linen, the potency of cochineal as a dyestuff became abundantly obvious. Unsure as to how much would be needed, I filled one side of the cloth, folded it over on itself and was halfway to filling the next side when a snake and I scared the heck out of each other. 

Don't ask me what kind of snake it was ... a sorta big snake is all I know. Big enough to convince me that I had collected quite enough cochineal beetles, thank you very much ...

Having read that cochineal is particularly sensitive to mineral content, I decided to use distilled rather than tap water and heated it to a simmer in the hot pot I used for tea at my last job. Fortunately, the hot pot is no longer needed for that purpose.

I dropped the beetle smeared cloth into the water and color happened within seconds ...

An hour later, I had to fish out the cloth for a look as it was no longer visible in the darkened brew ...

Still, having watched the Dharma Trading dyeing tutorials I decided to give it time to steep overnight (with thanks to KINDRED SPIRIT Dee Mallon for pointing the Dharma Trading info out to me) . 

Next I pulled together four batches of cotton and linen cloth scraps for pre-mordanting ...

putting them into canning jars with 1 tsp. of food grade alum and 1 cup of boiling distilled water ...

The plan is to do four jars with ...

• Alum alone
• Alum with cream of tartar
• Alum with fresh lemon juice
• Alum with steel wire

So tomorrow morning I will warm up the bug juice, strain out the solids, and pour it into the canning jars in equal measures.

Then I will cap the jars and wait. 

How long will I wait? I haven't a clue. Suggestions anyone?

- Love potion #9: Red onion and alum

Note: that wonky bit of weaving is from Jude's Considering Weave workshop

I'm thinking if I document my dyeing trials online I'll be less apt to open the canning jars before their time. So for the record, here's what I put into canning jar #9:

• 1 tsp. alum dissolved in hot tap water
• 4 used tea bags in the bottom
• 8 pieces of muddy dyed linen wrapped around slices of a tiny red onion
• 1 piece of muddy dyed linen wrapped around dry red onion skins
• 4 used tea bags in the top
• Boiling tap water to fill
• 1 limestone rock and 1 block of wood to compress
• Cap loosely and put in the sun

I can't possibly wait two whole weeks, so I'm scheduling this one to be opened in ten twelve days on November 9th.

Addendum: And what if I added a limestone rock and a block of wood to compress the contents? What alchemical magic might ensue?

- On the learning curve: More lessons in dyeing

I'm calling this a good first pass at dyeing experimentation since there were a lot of lessons learned, chief among them: save a piece of the original cloth for comparison (or look back at this post to see what the tan sheeting looked like ... or look at number 9, which did a whole lot of not much).

Photo taken mid-morning under an overcast sky
Note: the colors in the photos are somewhat less intense than in "real life"

The four cloths in the top row were wrapped in copper wire. I particularly liked the avocado pits, which almost look like they discharged the tan, leaving a pale lavender/pink in its wake ...

The red onion also did well with the copper, leaving soft greens and peaches ...

The cloths in the middle row were wrapped in fine steel wire, which left its mark along with the avocado peels ...

Likewise, the iron in the steel brought out stronger colors from both the yellow onion skins ...

and the red onion skins ...

The cloths in the bottom row were treated to a dose of grocery store alum, which did virtually nothing with the avocado pits and peels, but provided the most dramatic yellow onion skin results ...

and red onion skins results ...

I was less successful with my last minute stew of acorns, windfall lichens, tea bags, onion and avocado skins in a copper pot with a selection of vintage white cottons and linens ...

To my eye, they are a pretty unappealing lot, with the exception of a tiny patch of lichen orange ...

So it's back to the drawing board ...

- Dyeing to get home

As you may recall, I left 12 canning jars and a copper pot full of dyestuff before hitting the road two weeks ago.

2500 miles later (San Marcos to Lubbock to Santa Fe to Oklahoma City to St. Louis to Tulsa to Fort Worth and finally back to San Marcos), this is what was waiting for me ...

I learned a thing or two as I opened the jars: 

• rot happens (so point the jar away from you as you open it)
• stuff swells (so don't pack the jar too tight, especially if it has a narrow neck)
• numbering is helpful (so write numbers in permanent ink on cloth before dyeing)

As a reminder, here's what I put in each jar:

1. Dried avocado pits (unbroken) wrapped in copper wire
2. Broken avocado pits wrapped in steel wire
3. Dried avocado skins wrapped in copper wire
4. Dried avocado skins wrapped in steel wire
5. Yellow onion skins wrapped in copper wire
6. Yellow onion skins wrapped in steel wire
7. Red onion skins wrapped in copper wire
8. Red onion skins wrapped in steel wire
9. Dried avocado pits wrapped in twine, with 1 tsp grocery alum 
10. Dried avocado skins wrapped in twine, with 1 tsp grocery alum  
11. Yellow onion skins wrapped in twine, with 1 tsp grocery alum  
12. Red onion skins wrapped in twine, with 1 tsp grocery alum 

Too impatient to wait until they were fully washed and dried, I did take preliminary pictures of the cloth in jars 1-7 ... 

and 8-12 ...

They are now in the washer, so a fuller accounting will be made when they are a bit more presentable and the lighting a bit more consistent.

To be continued ...

- A little farther west: Music bridges Texas and the Netherlands

If you look in my Kindred Spirits link to the right, you will see Tales from the Birdhut ... Saskia being one of the connections I've made through Jude Hill's Considering Weave (see my October 7 post on Reworking a cotton blouse boro-style).

So when I wrote about another boro-style top called "it's only RAIN" and included a link to the Jimmy Davis song of the same name, Saskia commented that she liked his music. I told Don, who said, "I think I saw the Mystiqueros are going to be playing with Bart de Win in the Netherlands sometime soon." 

Sure enough, when I checked on Facebook, Jimmy Davis had an October 21 house concert scheduled at Bart's (side note: we've seen Bart play with the MQs in Texas 3 or 4 times). I made a comment on Saskia's blog that it would be so cool if she could go to the concert ... and she did! You can read all about it in today's post at Tales from the Birdhut.

By the way, about the same time Saskia and her husband were listening to the MQs in person, Don and I were listening to one of their CDs during our 966 mile drive from Santa Fe to St Louis ... a little farther west (which just happens to be one of my many Mystiqueros favorites).

I'm beaming as I write this ... feeling like the sun is shining from the inside out ... amazed at how the world can be so large and so small at the same time.

Leaving New Mexico

Color ...

Tucumcari ...

Going, going, gone ...

One last look

Liz

- Dark clouds on the horizon: A Santa Fe sunset

Fire on the Mountain: Sunset in Santa Fe at the Raven's Ridge

Sunset ...

Don

Sunrise ...