On that busy Saturday, we dyed yarn in red, purple, orange, pink, fuchsia, green, and burgundy. For several of those colors, we used the right amount of cochineal, a small insect that lives on cactii.
Some of us had been out early to collect chillca and awaypill leaves for green and purple. Others gathered q’olle and kiku flowers for yellow. My team ground chaphi branches for this peach color, and we all laughed when we smashed our fingers with the grinding stones. But we sang along the pounding sound.
Two days later, we were twisting all the dyed yarn. Dropping and pulling our spindles up from the ground created a rainbow dance.
