Dyeing to Dye

What to do when there are 10-12 inches of snow outside? DYE! I had some cochineal in my dye stash so I dug out my recipes and found one that I thought would suit my need. Skeins from left to right: cochineal, indigo overdyed w/cochineal, indigo overdyed w/weld. The recipe I used was from a handout I got from Carol Leigh at Maryland when I purchased the cochineal. The same basic recipe is in Liles book on scarlet red with cochineal. I used cream of tartar and tin as mordants and put them right in the dye bath. The dark reddish, purplish, ground cochineal turned scarlet as soon as I added the cream of tartar to the dye bath. This recipe was easy and I would recommend it for a got scarlet. The indigo skeins were some I had from last spring and since I had a cochineal bath going I just added the two skeins of indigo. The third skein of indigo was from an appalachian vat recipe, probably 6 dunks and the weld was grown in my garden two summers ago. I had dried it for just this purpose. I used two ozs. of dried weld simmered it for and hour, strained out the weld and added the wetted skein with no mordant. The green is more forest than kelley which I  get when I use black oak bark dye over indigo.