Spinning the pink-burgundy-green braid of merino

This is the third and final braid of the Merino Trio of fibres that I have been spinning.  It's been a few months since I finished the second braid as I have been busy with other projects and preparing for the Tour de Fleece which is about to start but at the same time I am desperate to finish spinning the trio before I spin the Tour fibre.

For the third time, I split the fibre along its entire length, pre-drafted and spun both singles from the same end.

The photos above show it in the process of being spun and then both spun singles side by side on their bobbins.  I don't like pink but this has a good amount of very dark, almost purple in it so I am cool with it at this stage, its tolerable to me.

This one also spun up as a Light Fingering weight yarn, although the skein is a little heavier at 108g I still got 522m from it.  The three skeins together are very pretty but I will be using them individually.

Combing the Castlemilk Moorit x Norfolk Horn fleece

8 years ago I bought a 350g bag of raw Castlemilk Moorit x Norfolk Horn fleece.  After a sort and a wash I was left with 248g of clean fleece to prepare.  With one thing and another, being busy with all kinds of other stuff, this bag has been overlooked.  Until now.  One of the fibres on the shopping list for the upcoming TdF was "Faroe Island" and it transpires that this suggestion was for a challenge that will involve a natural dark fibre.  I have this bag of natural dark fleece that is just waiting to become natural dark fibre. 

It is really difficult to describe the colour, kind of dark grey brown but the brown does seem to be more focused on the tips so maybe it is just a bit of sunbleaching?  Castlemilk Moorit sheep are kind of tan through to dark brown so I am expecting some kind of brown in there anyway.

After combing I was left with 163g of hand-combed nests in a whole range of shades so what I decided to do was to combine them on my blending hackle to even out the colours more and this resulted in just a 10g loss, leaving me with 153g of lovely brown-grey top to spin.

I'm ready for the TdF now.

Analysis of the results of dyeing the plant based fibres

So, onto my analysis of my first attempt at dyeing plant based and cellulose based fibres.  The two anomalies that were pretty obvious were with the Tropical Green and the Deep Violet dyes.

Although not all of the fibres dyed 100% Tropical Green turned out to be anything like the expected colour, I am not going to over-dye what I did get from it because I do like the final result.  I've put together a kind of results photo of just the 100% Tropical Green fibres to show the comparison of fibres.  Some of them turned out more pale blue or aqua than green.  They are pretty though and I don't really mind as these were dyed purely to add a variety of colours to my "ingredients cupboard" for when I make blends with wool.  I wasn't dying with a specific end result in mind.

I over-dyed the disappointing result from dyeing the Faux Cashmere/Bio-Nylon blend and the Trilobal Nylon using my usual Greener Shades Dyes at 1% depth in Coral Reef Aqua.  I have discovered that these two Nylon based fibres can be dyed with either dye, both work on these particular fibres.

Top: Faux Cashemere/Bio-Nylon before & after
Bottom: Trilobal Nylon before & after

As I already said in the previous post, I did re-dye all of the Soybean again but on their own in the dye pot.

Summary by fibre type

Hemp - all of the samples dyed a little patchy so I think I need to open up the fibres more before putting them in the dye pot.  Having said that they did all come out the expected colour or close to it.

Trilobal Nylon - all of the samples dyed pretty evenly except for one and there was the two anomalies, being the Tropical Green and the Deep Violet.

Ingeo Corn - both samples dyed evenly and beautifully and the blue dyed as expected, it was the one that went into the green dye that didn't dye green.

Himalayan Nettle - both samples dyed a little patchy, I probably needed to open the fibres out a bit more, but took dye well and exactly the colour expected.

Pearl Fibre - both samples dyed a little patchy but intensely and the colour expected.

Soybean/Soy Silk - all of the samples dyed quite patchy, which was probably my fault for not opening the fibres up more than I did.  I re-dyed them in the same colours but opened them up more and gave them the entire dye pot to move around in and they came out much better.

Pineapple Fibre - both samples took the dye well, although a little patchy, and the colour was as expected.

Egyptian Cotton - this took the dye well and the colour was as expected.  I should have opened the fibres out more as it was a little patchy, especially in the centre of the length.

Faux Cashmere/Bio-Nylon blend - all samples took the dye well and evenly and the colour as expected except for the Deep Violet and the Tropical Green.

Milk Protein - both samples took the dye well and evenly.  The blue was as expected and the green was a lot brighter/more vivid than expected.

Banana Fibre - both samples dyed patchy so I need to make sure I really open the fibres if I do this again but they did dye intensely.

Mint Fibre - this had a pale golden base colour and I did only dye both samples a very subtle colour but they are both very slightly patchy and not dyed evenly.

Rose Fibre - both samples took the dye vibrantly although slightly patchy.

Over-dyed Soy Silk - both samples took the dye well but not evenly but this is most likely because the original colour was not a solid colour either, it was light and dark shades of pink.

I do have more fibres of this kind that I want to dye once I have purchased more colours to give me a larger range of colours that I can get from these dyes.

Dyeing all kinds of plant based fibres using Dylon cold water dyes

I've had a full day in the kitchen playing with a variety of plant and cellulose fibres and some cold water dyes.  My usual Greener Shades Dyes are not suitable for this kind of fibre and I now have quite a lot of it thanks to the two years of Advent Calendars and the occasional purchase by me, like the lap waste bags and a sample pack. 

I've bought some small packs of cold water hand-wash dyes by Dylon, they also do dyes you can use in the washing machine, I don't want those.  It doesn't say on the packets but working things out logically you can actually just use the amount of dye you need to use for the amount of fibre and keep the rest for later, you just need to be able to seal the packets up in between uses.  I have some food packet clips from Ikea which are really good and provide a nice tight seal.  You can also mix the dye colours to make new colours and shades, like my usual dyes, again it doesn't mention this on the packets but it does work. 

Each 50g packet dyes up to 250g of fabric or fibre.  The instructions say to weigh and then soak the fabric or fibre and to dissolve the whole pack of dye in 500ml of warm water.  Weighing the fabric seems like a daft instruction amongst the rest of the instructions to me, other than to make sure that what you are dyeing is less than 250g, because you would only weigh the fibre if you are weighing out the dye to achieve a specific depth of colour and these instructions are assuming you don't care about the finished shade or depth of colour, just shove all of the dye in and hope for the best.  It then says to fill a bucket or sink with 6 litres of warm water.  Next you have to add 250g of salt followed by the dye and then the fabric or fibre.  Stir for constantly for 15 minutes followed by regularly stirring for 45 minutes.  Rinse in cold water and its done.

My revised instructions for enabling these dyes to be used in smaller amounts is as follows: 

• use 1g of dye for every 5g of fibre
• Dissolve the required amount of dye in 10ml of warm water for every 1g of dye
• use 5g of salt for every 1g of dye
• add the dissolved dye to a further 120ml of warm water for every 1g of dye
• add the fibre and stir
• rinse in cold water after being in the dye for about an hour

So, the fibres that I have dyed are:

I also planned to dye a 10g sample of Egyptian Cotton, which I don't have a before photograph of and I have over-dyed two pink fibres that I have in my stash, 11g of pink Bamboo and 75g of Pink Soybean/Soysilk.  The pink soybean isn't too bad a shade of pink but I do have quite a lot so I have split it into 3 lots, keep one in the original pink and dyed the other two lots.

My "dye pots" are re-cycled plastic take-away tubs and these hold enough dye to dye roughly 30g-35g of fibre.  The dye colours that I have used are Vintage Blue, Deep Violet, Tropical Green and Sunshine Yellow.  The results are not always what I expected but I am dying this fibre purely to put into my "ingredients cupboard" in a variety of colours.  The fibre base colour will have an affect on the final result, especially the Soybean.  The Mint fibre is a kind of pale mushroom colour in real life so that is likely to have a bit of an affect on the results too.

There were 16 "dye pots" throughout the course of the day and most of them had 3 different types of fibre in them.  All of the fibres were soaked in warm water with the addition of a small amount of Synthropol prior to being put in the dye to remove any finishes that may have been on the surface of the fibre. 

The Soybean, Trilobal Nylon, Hemp and Faux Cashmere/Bio-Nylon are larger amounts and have been pulled into lumps of about 10g each.  The other fibres that I am dying from scratch are 25g samples htat have been split roughly in half to be dyed two different colours.  I will let the following photos tell you all need to know.  Where there is no percentage figures on the dye photos means that it was 100% of that colour.  I have only put percentage figures where I mixed the colours in those proportions.

I'm pretty happy with my dyed fibre.  The Soybean/SoySilk fibres didn't take the dye too well on the first attempt and I went back through and re-dyed them in the same colours as the first time around but this time it was on its own in the dyepot.  I also over-dyed the Trilobal Nylon and the Faux Cashmere/Bio-Nylon blend that had turned out bright pink from the Deep Violet dye.

I will write a separate post to discuss the results, as this one is long enough already.

Design LF433 - Pretty in Orange and Lime

The day after finished the last shawl I started making this one.  Unfortunately I didn't calculate things properly and I ran out of the lime green before being able to make enough flowers.  I did search the internet and I tried a couple of alternatives but there was just nothing around that is even close in colour to the this particular shade of lime.

The upshot is that I have made one of my usual shawls but this one is a little smaller and therefore at a lower price point.

Making my own matching reverse blends from some North Country Cheviot fleece

I'm carrying on with more blending today, although I might pay for this later with some serious shoulder ache.  I keep forgetting that I'm not as young as I once was and the old bones and muscles moan and creek these days.

A few days ago I dyed some North Country Cheviot fleece a gorgeous shade of green that is certainly different to anything you could possibly find in any shop.  Today I am going to blend everything together that I have picked out and I am going to do it twice, in reverse colours.  Bear with me, all will be revealed and will make sense shortly.

So, first up is the Lime coloured Cheviot with the natural or white textures. In this blend was 157g North Country Cheviot wool, 10g Tussah Silk, 6g Hemp, 5g Mulberry Silk Noil, 4g Trilobal Nylon.

Top left: Natural undyed hemp and below that is natural undyed Mulberry Silk Noil
Top right: Dyed North Country Cheviot hand combed nests
Bottom left: White Trilobal Nylon and bleached Tussah Silk

Next up is the natural coloured Cheviot with lime coloured textures.  In this blend was 137g undyed North Country Cheviot wool, 10g Tussah Silk in shade Caiprinha, 7g Hemp in shade Caiprinha, 7g Silk Noil in shade Chlorophyll and finally 2g each of the Trilobal Nylon in shade Caiprinha and Neon Green, the later I dyed myself a few days ago because I knew I hadn't got enough of the Caiprinha for this project.

Top left: Hemp in shade Caiprinha and below that is Silk Noil in shade Chlorophyll
Top right: Undyed North Country Cheviot hand combed nests
Bottom left: Trilobal Nylon in Caiprinha and Neon Green and Tussah Silk in shade Caiprinha

I did try and over-dye the Silk Noil in Chlorophyll a few days ago to make it more like the green of the Caiprinha fibres but it didn't want to take the dye, it might have done slightly, but not very much.

So the finished blended fibres are very pretty.  My favourite right now is the green with the natural coloured textures.  It's a shame that the silk noil in the other blend didn't take on the green dye as it would have made it less "yellow" but I'm happy enough with these.  The amounts are different between the colourways and so is the final fibre content because of that but once spun up I envisage that these two will be worked together in the same project in some kind of striped item.

The fibre content of the Green Cheviot with natural textures is :  86% Cheviot Wool, 6% Tussah Silk, 3% Mulberry Silk Noil, 3% Hemp, 2% Trilobal Nylon.  There is approximately 174g of this to be spun.

The fibre content of the Natural Cheviot with lime textures is : 83% Cheviot Wool, 6% Tussah Silk, 4.5% Silk Noil, 4.5% Hemp, 2% Trilobal Nylon.  There is approximately 153g of this to be spun.

Making my own yellow blend for the last day of the TDF2023

I've been playing with my blending hackle again today and making a yellow fibre blend in preparation for the upcoming Tour de Fleece 2023.  There is always a "yellow jersey day", usually on the last day of The Tour.  I'm not buying any fibre for this event this year, I will make do with what I have because I have plenty that needs to be used up.

I have already dyed some fibre for this purpose just a few days ago and I have sorted out what else will be added to it to make it more interesting.

Top row: unknown cellulose/plant fibre and Trilobal Nylon both dyed a few days ago
Middle row: Angelina, Merino/Suri Alpaca blend I dyed a few days ago, Sari Silk in shade Honeycomb
Bottom row: Bamboo in shade Clara and Mulberry Silk Noil I dyed a few days ago

So the fibres I have picked out are all yellow but in different shades and textures and some are matt and some are shiny/lustrous.  In total 140g of fibre went through my blending hackle and I got 130g back out all nice and ready to spin in four bumps of fibre, which when paired up give me two x 65g lots.

Look how soft and fluffy this is.  It's gorgeous and I can't but help think of cute little ducklings.

The final fibre content is: 50% Merino wool, 21.5% Suri Alpaca, 7% Cellulose, 7% Bamboo, 4.5% Angelina, 3.5% Mulberry Silk, 3.5% Trilobal Nylon, 3% Sari Silk

A day dyeing fibre - mostly wool

There is always a yellow fibre blend required for the TdF in commemoration of the Yellow Jersey.  I am not buying anything in especially this year but I have nothing true yellow in my vast stash either so I will need to get the dyes out and dye some fibres and then blend the results with others bits from my "ingredients cupboard".

Today is the day for doing this.  I also have a couple of other dye jobs I want to try and fit in today too.

Middle photo shows the dyed fibre drying.  Left hand side: before & after Celluose Fibre followed by the Merino/Suri Alpaca. Right hand side: before & after Mulberry Silk Noil followed by Trilobal Nylon

I weighed the fibre I intended to dye and made up a dye pot of Greener Shades Dye in Sunshine Yellow at a dye depth of 1%.  After all the fibre was soaked in warm water containing a dash of Synthropol I added the fibre to the dye pot.  There was a 100g of a white Merino/Suri Alpaca blend that I got from WoW a few years ago and that has really taken the dye well, very bright yellow.  5g of Mulberry Silk Noil that I've had a lot of years and interestingly that hasn't taken the dye as I expected but it is a pretty lemon yellow.  I also added 10g of an unknown cellulose or plant based fibre and I didn't really expect this to take much dye in, if any at all, as the dyes are specifically for wool and animal based fibres but it has taken some dye and is another one that has come out a lovely pale lemon.  The 5g of brilliant white Trilobal Nylon that I also added to the dye pot sucked in the dye really well and came out the same bright yellow as the Merino/Suri Alpaca.  I also tried throwing a small handful of hemp into the dye pot but that was totally unaffected by the dye so I haven't bothered to show that here.

My next dye job of the day is an idea that I had pop in my head whilst on holiday last summer.  I had an idea about what to do with the left over North Country Cheviot hand combed nests from the British Breeds project.  I want to split it into two and make two matching yarns in reverse colours but dye it in a very light, summery green with maybe natural whites, yellows and greens as complementary textures.

Middle photo shows the dyed fibre drying.  Left hand side: before & after Trilobal Nylon, Right hand side: before & after North Country Cheviot

After weighing and soaking the fibre I made up a dye pot of Greener Shades Dye at a dye depth of 0.2% made up of 75% Sunshine Yellow and 25% River Blue.  There was a 157g of hand combed North Country Cheviot, 6g of Trilobal Nylon and I also chucked in a couple of other fibres which were already dyed green but not quite the right shade, these were 18g of Merino in shade leaf and 7 of silk noil in shade Chorophyll but these didn't change colour, maybe a tiny bit, but not noticeably different so I haven't included the pictures here.

My final dye job of the day was to over-dye a variety of hot pink fibre that I would never use as it was and I also threw a few undyed bits of fibre into the dye pot as well just because I'm using another different colour. I made up a dye pot of Greener Shades Dye Coral Reef Aqua at a dye depth of 1% and threw all of the soaked fibres in and hoped for the best.  Some of the smaller amounts I used a large jar and scooped some of the dye water into it and stood it back in the pot just to keep the fibres from mixing with others.

In the first photo you can see a lump of pink bamboo on the right hand side, this didn't take up any dye at all so I will try dying that one again once I have the right dyes.

The colours of the fibres looked pretty good in the dye pot but when I checked the pH I discovered that I needed to make an adjustment to neutralise it but I think I might have messed it up a bit because it changed the colour of the fibre from evenly dyed to kind of a random patches of different colours.  I might not have needed to do anything and I am kind of regretting touching it.  I need to get a digital pH reader because I really struggle with those little paper things.

Top row: 59g Merino
Middle row: 10g Trilobal Nylon
Bottom row: 48g Merino - Baubles, Day 8 from Advent Calendar 2022

Top row: 25g Northern Lights Bliss (Merino)
Bottom row: 16 Tussah Silk Raspberry

The previously undyed fibre is below

4g Trilobal Nylon, 5g Tussah Silk Noil
4g Tussah Silk Noil, 5g Hemp

All I have to do now is wait for it all to dry and then make the blends I want with the yellow and the green and all of this purple and blue will go into my ingredients cupboard to use in future blends.

Making a blend of the blue Whiteface Dartmoor

Back in September I dyed some Whiteface Dartmoor a blue-purple colour. I have now blended it with some other bits and pieces ready for spinning. I picked out a load of fibre but three of the bumps were close to what I wanted but not quite there.  After a little test I decided that if I blend the three together then it will give me the exact shade that I was looking for, as my intention is to only put the blend through the hackle once as I don't want it too well blended but these individual bumps needs to be well blended together first.  I blended them in roughly equal amounts so used all of the Merino and about half of the Corriedale.

Top right is Merino in shade Fuchsia, top left is Corriedale in shade Tanzanite, bottom left is Merino in shade Sapphire and bottom right is the finished blend of the three

A = 57g of blended Merino/Corriedale
B = 5g of Angelina in Ultraviolet
C = 20g of Tussah Silk in Lilac
D = 25g of Merino - WoW Northern Lights in shade Typhoon
E = 7g of Merino in Lavender
F = 15 of Hemp in Lilac
G = 14g of unknown white longwool
H = 13g of Sari Silk in Moon River
I = 324g of Whiteface Dartmoor wool

I had to loosen up the dyed Whiteface Dartmoor before I put it through the hackle because it had felted slightly in places during the dyeing process.  I lost 16g in the process, which is almost nothing.

The fibre content is: 67.5% Whiteface Dartmoor wool, 13.5% Merino wool, 5% Corriedale wool, 4% Tussah Silk, 3% Hemp, 3% Longwool breed, 3% Sari Silk and 1% Angelina.

This is another blend that probably won't be spun for the the TdF but hopefully it won't be too long before I get around to it.

I've signed up for the Tour De Fleece 2023

Once again I have signed up with the same team to participate in the TdF.  Once again there wasn't the £10 voucher to use on spinning fibre that everyone got the first year the supplier got involved in the fun.  It's a shame that some people only signed up that first year to get the voucher and then "ran off with their loot".  Shame on them and they've spoiled it for the rest of us.  Why can't people just be honest.

Once again the Team organisers have produced a couple of fibre braids, Destination and Midouze, for us to use on the challenges that they are going to set and they have also given us a list of suggested fibres, like they did last year.  This year, in addition, for those who prefer to be organised and those of us who can make our own blends for the challenges, they have given us a preview list of all of the challenges on the strict proviso that we do not make the challenges public knowledge on the team chat boards as other members like to wait until the day to find out what the challenge is.

This year I can't afford to buy any fibre braids for the event and I have plenty in my stash that will suffice for most of the challenges.  Some of the suggested shopping list included Leo, Mercury/space dyed, Pina Coloda, Railway Tweed, Mont Blanc, Virgo, Worth Melting For, Rambouillet, Shetland, Wensleydale, Flax/Linen, Alpaca, Faroe Island and Angelina or Rainbow Trilobal Nylon.  

I have sorted out some alternative fibres from my stash that might fit in with the list.  I have 2 x 100g of Worth Melting For in my stash, so I know I'm good for that challenge at least.

Making a blend using the Olive Green Jacob wool

I have finally found the time to decide on and sort out all the ingredients I need to make a blend using the olive green Jacob wool that I combed back in November last year.  For this blend, I have chosen to use an amount of white wool of unknown specific breed that I got in a "waste" bag a couple of years ago.

A = 3g of unknown superfine white wool
B = 6g of Silk Noil in Ivy
C = 19g of Tussah Silk in Powder
D = 39g of unknown fine white wool
E = 11g of 23 micron Merino in Olive
F = 13 of Hemp in Cyclamen
G = 22g of unknown medium coarse white wool
H = 5g of unknown fine off-white wool
I = 60g of 23 micro Merino in Coral
J = 24g of unknown cellulose based white fibre
K = 6g of Silk Noil in Olive Green
L = 5g of Trilobal Nylon in Olive Green
M = 242g of Jacob Wool in Olive Green

There are also a couple of small samples of wool that I got when buying fibre for the British Breeds Project.  I didn't take any photos of them but they are all natural white and are; 3g of North Country Mule, 3g of Beltex and 6g of Milennium Bleu.  These samples, along with the unknown white wools in the photo above totalled 81g and I decided to blend these together first on my blending hackle to even out the fibre types and remove any really short fibres.  What I was left with weighed 62g of mixed white wool.

I split all of the fibre into 4 equal amounts of everything which totalled about 112g per lot and then each of those was split into two, one for lot for each ply of a 2ply yarn plus the blending hackle can only handle around 50g-60g of fibre at any one time.  See the photo top right of the weighing out and the photo bottom left of one bundle.  I only put everything through the hackle once as I did not want it to be too well blended together.  The photo bottom right shows one of the 50g or so of blended fibre that will make up a single ply of a 2 ply skein together with my inspiration for the colour combination, which is an amount of fabric strips and ribbon that has been tied and twisted together to make a kind of twine and was made by my youngest not too long ago.  I'm not sure what they intend to use it for but its far too stiff and over-twisted to knit with it but very pretty.

I did loose a little bit of fibre during the blending process but not a great deal.  448g went through the hackle and 421g came out in the blends, so each skein will be about 105g.  The final fibre content is: 54% Jacob Wool, 16% 23 micron Merino Wool, 14% mixed white wools, 5.5% Cellulose, 4% Tussah Silk, 3% Hemp, 2.5% Silk Noil, 1% Trilobal Nylon.

Hopefully it won't be too long before I get around to spinning this but it's doubtful that it will anytime in July as that is taken up with the TdF and I have some more preparation to do between now and then.