NATURAL DYES OF PERU | ORGANIC COLOR | CHINCHERO | WOOL YARN COCHINEAL | PINK GREEN YELLOW ORANGE

[@MsSavvy9]

That green is everything I need in a green. 💞💞💞

[@MargaretByrdColorQuest]

I couldn't agree more 💚 Wait until you see the greens from today's video (Sept 23 - Foraging in Peru)!

[@matildagentle3816]

Wonderful adventure! I’m envious! ❤

[@MargaretByrdColorQuest]

Thank you, Matilda! I am so grateful for the opportunity - very luck indeed 🌼

[@cristinapape]

Love this video. A lot of informations...Thanks. Peru is very interesting. Dry place...and beautiful light.

[@MargaretByrdColorQuest]

Thank you, Cristina 🌼 I feel very lucky to have traveled to Peru. It is a wonderful place in so many ways!

[@bjchadwick4261]

Thanks for sharing this. I learned a lot and enjoyed it.

[@MargaretByrdColorQuest]

Thanks for joining on my adventure!

[@mijejo11]

I have some experience working with wool @Jessica Bey. My understanding is that wool needs to be handled with certain restrictions. Heat + agitation (movement) can cause felting. The same with extreme temperature change such as going from high heat to cool. Think about the wool's microscopic external features - scales. Heat opens the scales making them more vulnerable to catching onto other scales. Movement (agitation) while open increases the likelihood that scales will entangle with other scales. One would think that since boiling water creates movement, which can cause agitation, that the higher the boil, the more possibility for felting of the wool. There are other variables, such as the number of fibers per inch (micron count). Therefore, consider fiber from breeds with high micron count, known to be soft wool, and fiber from breeds with lower micron count known to have coarser wool. Another variable is where the fiber derives from on the animal. Certain body parts of a fiber animal have softer wool than other parts.

[@MargaretByrdColorQuest]

What an amazing wealth of information about wool and the potential effects of heat 🤎 Thank you so much for taking the time to share your knowledge!

[@hawthorngrove3629]

I think when it comes to heat it can depend on the fibre whether it will felt. I felted some English Leicester and Corriedale once.

[@MargaretByrdColorQuest]

I would trust you on that! I don't have much experience with all the different types of fiber beyond the basics. Never having sewn/knitted/crocheted etc., I can imagine there are so many variations out there that can be impacted differently.

[@mijejo11]

This was a VERY interesting video. In particular, I was very interested in how one dye pot is used and by making minute adjustments, the color shifts. I very much hope you will do a video on this. I totally agree with the no measurements type of dyeing. Just like a great chef does not measure but instead uses experience to know what to do and add - so does a great dyer, or an experimenting dyer, or a dyer using what is available. My frequent method of "Measuring" is a small bucketful of plant material to several handfuls of washed fleece. That will be my most intense color from that dye pot. Then subsequent exhaust gives me increasingly paler shades. I also have opportunity to shift the color and do other things with each iteration.

[@MargaretByrdColorQuest]

Thank you so much for your thoughtful comments 😊 I love your analogy to how a chef cooks - totally said the same thing to a few friends while I have been working with Maria here in Peru. In the video I released today (September 23 - Foraging in Peru), we did play around with shifting colors by experimenting with the different local modifiers. Cochineal was one of the dye sources that has such a wide range of color potential, so I plan to make a video showing this 'one pot' method of creating a diverse palette at some point in the future 💕

[@mijejo11]

@@MargaretByrdColorQuest You are so kind. The way I cook, is the way I dye. Not that I am claiming to be either a good cook, or a good dyer, but I definitely can fall into the categories of experimenting or using what is available - for both cooking and dyeing. In this video, you mentioned that the wool is not scoured. That makes me question does that mean it is raw fleece, as in straight off the sheep?

[@MargaretByrdColorQuest]

@@mijejo11 You are me both! I'm not a very precise person, so I like the freedom of working this way 😊 So - let me clarify what I meant in the video about scouring: The wool was finely spun and appeared very 'clean' - not raw at all in my opinion. There is a special 'shampoo' herb that the Quechuan dyers use to wash their raw wool several times before they begin the hand-spinning process. So, I suspect the wool we were using had been adequately scoured prior to us dyeing it. What surprised me is I've always been taught to scour wool no matter what shape it is in when you get it. We did not do that in my classes with Maria - after I created the skeins, they were soaked in water and put directly into the dye pot. Now - the wool I used in today's video (Sept 23) absolutely needed to be scoured. It had a very raw appearance as you can see in the video and it was very dirty. Completely different state of wool fiber between the two 🤎

[@mijejo11]

@@MargaretByrdColorQuest Aww, okay. Thank you for the clarification. When we clean raw fleeces, we call that process, "scouring." So, that is why I was confused. I suppose the word can be used for any process that cleans fiber or textiles.

[@MargaretByrdColorQuest]

@@mijejo11 Makes sense 😊 I think of scouring as a 'deep clean' and something you do on the stove-top. Honestly, I use my washing machine to clean my new fiber most frequently since I don't typically use yarn, but rather fabrics/textiles in my own art practice.

[@jessicabey275]

Oh wow those colors are beautiful! Maybe we are told not to have wool on high heat due to it shrinking but if it's in skeins then and not a garment or finished product I could see boiling it. Did the feel of the wool change? I am nervous to boil my dye, I think I'll burn the color or something 😅

[@MargaretByrdColorQuest]

You should see the whole rainbow we made....wow! My understanding around heat and wool has more to do with felting, and I would imagine that is particularly true of fiber in a yarn format. Since I am not a knitter and tend NOT to work with wool, I am not as sensitive to felting, but I didn't experience much of a change to the yarn here. It felt a bit more rough, but once I got the hang of unwinding the skeins, I found it rolled beautifully into the sweetest little yarn balls out there! You definitely need to be aware of potential color shifts with boiling certain dye matter if it is heat sensitive. My gut tells me that the plants I worked with in Peru are quite hardy and can handle (and maybe even needs) the high heat 😊

[@jessicabey275]

@@MargaretByrdColorQuest I have the thought floating around in my head to maybe.. try.. urine. I couldn't tell any of my family they would probably puke but if I could get vibrant colors then maybe it's worth a try 🤷‍♀️

[@MargaretByrdColorQuest]

@@jessicabey275 Haha...don't worry - your secret is safe with me 😉 Couple of things about the urine we used: it was fresh urine collected from children and stored in a cold environment. I was told the urine has to be from an age prior to producing hormones that can alter that chemistry of the urine. Oh yes...and it was EXTREMELY smelly. I had some leftover from a lesson that I tried to use about a week later with little success. Good luck if you attempt this!!

[@sophievautour8573]

so interesting about the rock alum. does it shrink in the pot, or can it be re-used many times

[@MargaretByrdColorQuest]

The rock alum was very cool! It dissolves as soon as it hits the hot water, so you break off just as much as you think you need. It was amazing to watch Maria, my dye master, work in the dye pot through instinct and many decades of practice. I brought one rock home, but I'm not sure I will ever use it - just keep it as an awesome memory of my time in Peru 🤎

[@sophievautour8573]

@@MargaretByrdColorQuest ahh. Good to know it does dissolve

[@mijejo11]

You said the wool is not scoured. For clarification, had the wool had any cleaning, or was it raw, as in straight off the sheep?

[@MargaretByrdColorQuest]

I missed your question from last week, but guessed we chatted about it today 🙂