I recently met a local natural dyer with years of experience under her belt. I had the pleasure of spending a day dyeing with her! I watched her dye with daffodils, dandelions, cochineal and onion skins. She was kind enough give me two bags of onion skins, one left over from her dye bath and a bag of fresh unused skins. And a bit of cochineal “sludge” from her leftover dye bath. So I thought I’d document my first experience dyeing with them!
Cochineal is the first nonbotanical dye I’ve used! Cochineal is a bug native to tropical and sub-tropical America, it feeds off cacti and the female bugs have a acid, called carminic acid, that form red and purple dyes. So its all natural! Just not botanical.
Cochineal dyebath cooling.
I first simmered the leftover skins in a bath and put in two 100g skiens mordanted with alum in and let them simmer for a bit. Probably about 20 minutes, but I wasnt counting. I let them stay in the bath while it cooled.
The result was very bright and almost a bit pumkiny despite the skins already being boiled and dyed with. I’m very impressed they had so much dye left in them!
The next bath I just added the fresh skins to the old bath and simmered for about 30 minutes. I put in one 100 g skien mordanted with alum, then two 100g skiens mordanted with alum then sat in an iron bath.
iron + onion skins.
The iron skiens have to be my favorite yellow yet, that brassy yellow just makes my heart sing!
With the cochineal, I simmered it for 30 minutes and strained the bath. I then sat two 100g skiens in and simmered for 30-45 minutes. The result is this amazing rose pink shade.
All in all, I'd say it was a successful dye day, 6 beautiful skeins dyed in the beautiful early spring sunshine.
First onion skin bath.