Adventures in tie-dye: heat-set dye

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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.

Comments

[scatteredshells]

Oh more comments from me yay!

Was flipping through some of my tie-dye links and realized that most of the reviews I read about fiber-reactive dyes are for cellulose fibers, so yeah silk or wool are definitely not in that category! Silly me.

[scatteredshells]

'Kay I'm very stupid -- more reading has shown me that the acid dye in an all-purpose dye like Rit (which contains other dye in it as well such as direct dye) is likely what is causing such brilliant results with your silk. :) Sorry if you knew all of that already!

One brilliant website where I'm pulling this information from is here: http://www.pburch.net/dyeing.shtml Again, sorry if you've found that site already. :) It looks like you could even use things like vinegar, food colouring, and a microwave to tie-dye your silk! At least, that's what the website is telling me. So nifty!