Post by halay on Jul 15, 2016 13:24:51 GMT
I bought some cochineal dye from Wollknoll. It was quite expensive (18 EUR for 100 gr) but considering 150,000 insects need to be collected to get 1 kg of dye, it is reasonable. I have never used it before and was quite excited to see what I'll get. Basically I followed the dying instructions from this site www.cochinealdye.com/html/cochineal-dyeing.html. First I ground the stuff in an electric coffee grinder and soaked it overnight in rain water. Next day I added more water and heated the liquid and then filtered it. I saved the residue for next dyeing. In total I had approx 2.5 litres of liquid. Previously I mordanted all the fibers and fabrics I was planning to dye in alum mordant. I dried all the materials, as suggested in the instructions. I used white mireno wool roving, throwster waste, bamboo, viscose, linen, some funny stuff from Wollknoll which they call "schappe silk" which gives very nice texture. As for fabrics I used margelan silk (denser) and margelan gauze, silk chifon and a piece of ponge silk.
I soked approx. half of the material in dye and simmered it for about an hour and let it stay overnight. I squeezed the liquid out and saved it for the next batch. These are the final results. The colour from the first batch was of course more intense, a kind of cardinal red (ony my screen it looks a bit different) The next batch gave a paler colour and different shades.
The fibers behaved very differently: the wool absorbed different shades but to me it looks interesting (you sen see it on the right), followed by schappe silk, linen, bamboo and viscose and throwster waste on the left. Throwster waste and linen aborbed colour best. The last picture shows fabrics from two batches: In the first batch i dyed margelan silk and in the second batch I dyed silk chifon, margelan gauze and ponge.
I need to note that I rinsed the dye out only after the materials have dried (so it was suggested in the instructions). Now I need to think of a project and see how stable the colour will be after felting. For me this was just an experiment.
I soked approx. half of the material in dye and simmered it for about an hour and let it stay overnight. I squeezed the liquid out and saved it for the next batch. These are the final results. The colour from the first batch was of course more intense, a kind of cardinal red (ony my screen it looks a bit different) The next batch gave a paler colour and different shades.
The fibers behaved very differently: the wool absorbed different shades but to me it looks interesting (you sen see it on the right), followed by schappe silk, linen, bamboo and viscose and throwster waste on the left. Throwster waste and linen aborbed colour best. The last picture shows fabrics from two batches: In the first batch i dyed margelan silk and in the second batch I dyed silk chifon, margelan gauze and ponge.
I need to note that I rinsed the dye out only after the materials have dried (so it was suggested in the instructions). Now I need to think of a project and see how stable the colour will be after felting. For me this was just an experiment.