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Adventures in tie-dye: heat-set dye
Sunset I
Closeup Left
Closeup Right
The yellow and red in this one are Rit dye (heat setting), the blue is from the same Tulip kit as the last one (time setting). I had planned for the colors to go yellow/orange/red/purple, but as you can see that didn't quite happen. Other than the fact that you start with boiling water, Rit dye is easy to work with and gives both intense color and fast results. You let the fabric soak in hot dye for 30min, rather than overnight like the Tulip dyes, then rinse it out. The interesting pattern around the ends happened when the Tulip blue wicked up into the red area while sitting overnight.
Closeup Left
Closeup Right
The yellow and red in this one are Rit dye (heat setting), the blue is from the same Tulip kit as the last one (time setting). I had planned for the colors to go yellow/orange/red/purple, but as you can see that didn't quite happen. Other than the fact that you start with boiling water, Rit dye is easy to work with and gives both intense color and fast results. You let the fabric soak in hot dye for 30min, rather than overnight like the Tulip dyes, then rinse it out. The interesting pattern around the ends happened when the Tulip blue wicked up into the red area while sitting overnight.
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Usually when I see people getting bland or faded results from Rit dye, it's because they haven't used hot enough water. When the instructions say "near-boiling", they mean it. (I heat distilled water to boiling in an electric kettle, mix the dye with that, and get the fabric into it as quickly as possible.) Sometimes it's tricky to manipulate the fabric without touching the saturated areas, so it's useful to keep a pair of tongs or chopsticks around for that. Since I've only been preparing small batches, my results are closer to those from the low-water immersion process than standard tie-dye.
Food coloring is way more expensive than fabric dye, weight for weight. Stuff that's safe to eat needs higher purity and better quality control. :)
Your plans for batik sound interesting! When you get around to it, please post pictures.