70 Thousand Bugs!

     I think that's how many it takes to dye a pound of yarn.  Cochineal bugs, that is.  I knew that ancient peoples had used the cochineal insect to achieve shades of red, crimson, and purples, but I somehow pictured these bugs as skulking around under rocks in the desert.  So I was totally excited when a landscaping tour guide at the Scottsdale Sheraton picked what looked like a piece of cotton fluff from a prickly pear cactus, rubbed it in a piece of paper, and like magic there was a streak of a beautiful purply-red.
   

Prickly Pear in bloom, with small cochineal infestation on pad

As she explained what I already knew about cochineal, I started mentally cataloging where there were more cacti, and what I could possibly do with them.   Some people spend their Arizona vacation at the casino, or lounging at the pool with a cool drink, but I couldn't WAIT to start scraping bugs off a cactus.
     The next day I got my empty plastic berry box and plastic knife and searched out a clump of prickly pear that I had seen earlier and knew to have "cotton fluff."  It was time-consuming and careful work to scrape off the sticky bug-deposit located at the base of many of the thorns.  Even with the lightest touch, sometimes I left red streaks from bugs that got mashed.  And the protective white secretions were AMAZINGLY sticky and hard to get released from my knife.
     After "harvesting" from many cacti, I found the gold mine of cochineal!  FIVE large cacti, in a secluded spot and heavily infested.

Heavy Cochineal infestation on prickly pear, many of the arms as dense as the one on the right.

Maybe someone reported a suspicious person lurking around the prickly pears, because after a bit I was joined by the the head groundskeeper and his minion.  They didn't question me, thank goodness, and I tried to act like I was just enjoying a bit of sun in the middle of the cactus patch.  But they got down to business, and the head groundskeeper notified his worker that the cacti were too infested to spray, they should be cut down and burnt, and new ones planted from healthy pads nearby.  I got a few more spots after they left, but then had to hurry back to my room to store my treasure, and wash off the splashes of cochineal I had gotten from the bugs, and blood that I had gotten from the cactus thorns.

    Later that evening I went out again, to get MORE... greed has no end!  But all that was left of the patch was five stumps.  So I counted it good and set myself to figuring how to get them home, how to dry them.  Internet-research-time.

     

    I did attempt to dry them in a pot in the oven, but I really couldn't tell any difference afterward.  I imagine it would have been different if I could have freed the insects from their protective fluff, but that was impossible and I didn't want to risk losing any.

    Next I tried to crush them into powder (same pot with a meat tenderizer).  Again it didn't do much, but I did see that it was releasing color.

     I boiled a teakettle of water and poured some in and HURRAH...a big color release.  Then I remembered it was supposed to be distilled water, and that I had purchased two gallons JUST for this event.  So I added the remainder from distilled and started it simmering.

Cochineal bugs plus fluff simmering

After it had a good color, I strained it through a panty-hose-foot, keeping the contents since I had read that much more color could be extracted from those bugs.  Ooops... I didn't manage to keep my reflection out of the picture!

Strained Dyebath

Next I added the yarn that I had pre-soaked in water mixed with alum and cream of tartar.

Adding the mordanted yarn

I knew I was crowding the yarn, but I only have one dye-pot and since I didn't know how long the dye would hold out, I didn't want to dye them sequentially.  SO...all together now!

Yarn simmering in dyebath

The crowding left some pale sections on a couple of the skeins, even though I had tried to stir everything evenly.  I took those two and popped them back into the pot, squeezed the cochineal bag some more and let it simmer.  The skeins colored up nicely.

When the dyebath seemed to fade a little, or if there was a too-pale section of yarn, I just squeezed the sock of cochineal bugs to get more color.  

Squeezing out the last bit of color

There was a little color left, so I hunted down a tiny skein of alpaca and tossed it in.  This time I just microwaved it in the jar.  Very pale.

I think the dye is finally exhausted.

Exhausted dyebath.  It was really paler than this picture.

Levels of color

And here is the finished product...about 2000 yards of DK weight superwash merino handspun.  The 5 on the left are really much more identical in color than they look here.  I just couldn't find a photo-spot without shadow.  I plan to knit a lace cardi, and use the one lighter skein as an accent panel somewhere in it.

Finished skeins

 I always thought that natural dyeing produced boring and muddy yellows and browns.  But this was    one of the most fun things I've done with fiber and color!  Who knew that an ugly plant infestation could produce such a beautiful color!  And I have read that there are many other ways that the color can be changed into oranges and purples.   But I looked forever in the store for ammonia, so that will have to wait for another time.

Here are some web sources:

http://www.cochinealdye.com/html/cochineal-dyeing.html

http://www.wildcolours.co.uk/html/cochineal.html

http://www.prairiefibers.com/Dyeing%20Notes.htm

http://www.botgard.ucla.edu/html/botanytextbooks/economicbotany/Cochineal/

http://allfiberarts.com/2011/how_dye_cochineal.htm

http://www.earthguild.com/products/riff/rcochinel.htm