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.

A full day of dyeing stuff

I had quite a few things that I wanted to dye or over-dye so I set aside a full day to do as much as I could, time and available space to get it dry depending.

The first thing that I tackled was a shawl that I finished crocheting at the beginning of the year but was not happy because the yarn was darker in one part than the rest and this dark stripe ruined the shawl.  I had to buy dye specifically for this as my usual dyes don't work on cotton.  I have already blogged about the shawl and updated the post to show the finished dyed version and you can find that here.

I used a cold water Dylon dye in shade "Burlesque Red" and followed the instructions.  The water isn't properly cold, it has to be hand warm to begin with but doesn't require any further heat.  The shawl has come out pretty good though, I'm happy with it.

What I did do, whilst this shawl was having a nice soak, was to take a clean empty jam jar and scooped a small amount of dye water out of the dye pot and then pull off a 5g clump of undyed trilobal nylon from the 100g clump I have and pushed it into the dye water in the jar.  I made sure it was fully submerged and just left it on the side for about half an hour.  

The colour is nothing like the shawl, not even close, you would not think it was dyed using the exact same stuff at the exact same time.  It has come out a pale purple colour but evenly dyed though and this will now go into my "ingredients cupboard" for use to add a bit of shimmer when I make my own fibre blends.

The next thing that I dyed was some bright yellow cotton yarn that I would like to tone down a lot to make a more usable and appealing colour.

I have chosen the same cold water Dylon dye but this time in shade "Ocean Blue", fully aware that over-dying something yellow with blue will no doubt make it become green.

I'm happy enough with the result of the yarn, not ecstatic, but it's fine.  I also tried to dye some wool using the left over from the dye pot as it is supposed to be able to dye wool, just a much paler shade than you get from dyeing plant based fibres.  It didn't work, barely touched it, so I laid it to one side to dry until I could get around to using my usual wool dyes.

I done the same thing with this dye pot, I took a clean empty jam jar and scooped a small amount of dye water out of the dye pot and then pull off a 6g clump of undyed trilobal nylon and pushed it into the dye water in the jar.  I made sure it was fully submerged and just left it on the side for about half an hour.  

The colour is nothing like the yarn, but then I don't expect it to be given that I am dying something white with blue dye so of course it will be blue.  Again the result is evenly dyed and this will also now go into my "ingredients cupboard" for use to add a bit of shimmer when I make my own fibre blends.

The final thing that I wanted to dye today was the last of the white Jacob fleece that I have had a number of years, since 2014.  I had already chosen a dye and despite the poor results from trying to dye some Whitefaced Dartmoor wool in the left over blue dye I decided to still give it a go with the cold water Dylon dye in shade "Olive Green", given the fact that this is fresh unused dye and not left overs.  I have to say that it didn't work.  The results were poor and actually looked like it had been stained with urine.  Not nice at all.  However, the clump of trilobal nylon that I had dyed in the jam jar came out a lovely shade of very pale olive green.

So I now have two decent-ish amount of wool that is wet from a failed dye attempts.  The Whitefaced Dartmoor I am happy to allow to dry because its kind of a pale silver colour right now but the Jacob needs to over-dyed right now.  I dig out my wool dyes and shade book and I get to doing some complex maths and weighing out the dyes I need.  I chose a dye depth of 1%, that is 1g of dye for every 100g of dry fibre so its a good job I knew how much it weighed before I put it in the dye pot earlier, 427g.  I made the 4.27g of powdered dye up using 45% River Blue, 45% Sunshine Yellow and 10% Ruby Red and got cooking - the wool dyes require high temperatures.

I am happy with the results and can't wait to see what it will look like when it is combed and made to look nice and fluffy.

I also dyed some Trilobal Nylon with this dye by scooping some of the dye water into a jam jar with a small clump of the Trilobal Nylon pushed down into it.  This dye normally requires heat but I gave it a go with just it being stood on the side for about half an hour and it kind of worked.  Its not evenly dyed but it did take up some of the dye anyway so that's OK and I have some Trilobal Nylon from an old supplier that is just like this, not evenly dyed, and she gets away with selling it like that so I'm happy enough.