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?
