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.

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2022 Stage 7 - Tomblaine to La Super Planche des Belles Filles (France)

Stage 7 of the Tour de France and it is a 176.3km long mountain race that starts in Tomblaine and ends in La Super Planche des Belles Filles (France)

The Map

Sights and points of interest along the route

At the start town of Tombaline there is an area of 17 hectares that have been declared as a Natural Sensitive Area not far from Tomblaine town centre where they hope to preserve an exceptional fauna and flora, including 144 animal species.  The Nancy-Essey Aeronautics Museum with its collection of restored Jet Fighter aircraft from 1948-1984.  There is also Tomblaine Farm, where Louis Pasteur stayed and worked on his project to pasteurise milk.

Along the route is the town of Art-sur-Meurthe, reputed to have maybe been the hometown of Jacques of Arc, Joan of Arc's father, but this cannot be proven.  The Charterhouse of Bosserville is a former Carthusian monastery (1666-1901) with a chapel at its heart.  It is now a vocational school.  There is also an 18th century manor house, Castle Art-sur-Meurthe nearby, which is a venue for cultural and festive entertainment.

Charterhouse of Bosserville

Other towns on the route are Dombasle-sur-Meurthe, Vitrimont and Lunéville, with the later being know for its embroidery which uses a mixture of pearls and sequins.  There is the Château de Lunéville, rebuilt in the early 1700's and burned down 7 times, the last time being 2nd/3rd January 2003 and restoration work has not quite finished.  Quite a way along the route from here is Gerbéviller Castle, built in the 17th century and still inhabited by Royalty, currently Prince Charles of Arenberg, of the House of Arenberg.

An example of Lunéville embroidery

The race then passes through the 13th century town of Rambervilliers with a town hall, Sainte-Lucy Castle and Saint-Libaire Church.  Next is the ancient castle town of Bruyères, known for its October 1944 battle against the Germans during WWII.  The small village of Champ-le-Duc with its 12th century Romanesque Notre-Dame Church and onto the town of Gerardmer and its nearby lake.  The mountain village of La Bresse is in the heart of the Ballons des Vosages Regional Nature Park with Lac des corbeaux (Raven's Lake), which is 600m long, 200m wide and 27 deep.  The riders also pass Cornimont, Ventron, Le Menil and Servance-Miellin, where you will find the Church of Our Lady of Assumption, Le Saut de L'Ognon (a dam) and an area of natural beauty Plateau des mille étangs (Plateau of a Thousand Ponds).

Plateau des mille étangs

The race continues through Fresse, Plancher-Bas and Plancher-les-Mines, the later of which is so called because of the silver mines that made it famous, and ends today at the summit of the mountain of La Super Planche des Belles Filles, which loosely translates as "the beautiful girls board" and is so named after a 1636 legend that states that young women would throw themselves into the water from the top of the mountain rather than suffer the abuse of Swedish attackers.  Locally there are the glassblowers of La Rochère, a local cherry brandy (Kirsch) brewery and Ray-sur-Saone Castle, which is currently being restored.

Who Won the Stage and Who Won What Jersey

The Stage winner is Tadej Pogacar for UAE Team Emirates

The Yellow Jersey won by Tadej Pogacar for UAE Team Emirates.

The Green Jersey won by Wout van Aert for Jumbo-Visma.

The Polka Dot Jersey won by Magnus Cort Nielsen for EF Education-Easypost/USA.

The White Jersey won by Tadej Pogacar for UAE Team Emirates.

Combatif Award won by Simon Geschke for Cofidis/FRA

Leading team: Ineos-Grenadiers

The Challenge: The starting point of today's stage is Tomblaine, but our interest lies 3 miles away in Nancy.  This historic prefecture's heraldry shows a thistle, a plant which is quite popular in heraldry.  It represents a strength and assertation that if you mess with a thistle, you're going to feel the thorns.  We've found the coat of arms for Huddersfield and, naturally, it involves sheep - much squishier than a thistle and right up our street!

Today's challenge is multi-faceted!  Spin a plant fibre (we don't advise thistle, maybe have a go with nettle!) OR colours that you associate with thistles 💜💚.  The second part is to do a little research and find out what the coat of arms/crest is for a place that is of interest to you.  We'd love to see what you find, but remember that you don't need to share personal details.

Suggested Fibre:  If you've bought the special TDF blend Thistle-do, now is the time to use it!

What I did

Well, I am well aware of the coat of arms of my city, Birmingham, the female figure represents arts & crafts and the male figure represents industrialism.

So, the spinning.  Well yes, I did buy Thistle-Do.  It's 80%  Shetland Wool, 20% Himalayan Nettle the colours are purple, green and white.

I decided not to pre-draft this one, just spin it from the end as I thought that way I could just follow each colour as it drafted in and have larger splodges of each colour.  I also thought that I was spinning it quite fine, but it turns out that this was not the case as its quite a heavy, dense yarn and not as soft as I had hoped it would be. Its not nasty but I think I could have spun it different and got a softer finished yarn.

The final yarn is double-knit, possibly pushing towards worsted weight, but definitely a heavier double-knit weight.  It's 97g/160m which in terms of the TdF length calculations is 480m - 2 singles plus the plied length = 3 x finished yarn length.