Bug dyeing

A friend of mine, who is a professor of Entomology, invited me to learn to dye fabrics with cochineal dye, which comes from bugs that live on cactus plants. It makes the red color you see in fine Mexican rugs. Of course, I jumped at the chance. You can get many different colors from just one dye bath, depending on the mordants you pretreat the fabric with. These are silk scarves. It was really fun. I can't wait to try it on sock yarn. Look for red yarn sometime soon.