Name: Stephanie

Message: Hi, I have a dress that is pure white that is 92% polyester and 8% spandex. I've been reading and it seems like you are very knowledgeable on this subject. I am basically looking to dye it a solid bright green and am thinking the emerald green in the dye na flow line and using airfix along with that so I don't need to heat set it. Do you have suggestions on how to make the color uniform and and as best as I can? Thank you so very much, I appreciate any help you may give me!

You're right that it's a better idea to use fabric paint than to use polyester dye, when there's spandex in the blend. Spandex is likely to be damaged by the extensive boiling required to dye polyester. The difficulty is that you don't get a perfectly smooth solid color when you use pigments to dye. Pigment dyeing is noted for the slightly uneven look it produces, and for the aged look you often get, especially after washing the garment. You will be happy with using fabric paint as a dye only if a 'stonewashed' effect will suit you.

Jacquard Products' Dye-Na-Flow is a good choice for painting on this blend, and Jacquard Products' Airfix, which you can order from Airfix, which you can order from Jerry's Artarama (one of the few mail-order sources for AirFix), avoids the need for heat-fixing. If you paint the Dye-na-Flow on with a brush, you will get at least slightly uneven results, but if you make a virtue of the unevenness, by, for example, painting regular stripes and then filling in between them, or by sponging randomly with two different but closely-related colors, you can get results that are mostly solid in color, but more interesting and attractive than a simple solid color dyeing job.

You might get more even results by immersing the dress in diluted thin fabric paint, and squeezing the fabric out with gloved hands, and re-immersing it several times, before hanging or spreading the dress out flat to dry. (Be sure to use a plastic container or bucket which is not important to you, because the fabric paint might stain it.) However, you will still get some unevenness, because of the way that fabric paints dry. There is no way to avoid getting at least a stone-washed effect, when using fabric paints in place of true dyes.

Another choice that I think you should consider is Dharma Pigment Dyes. These colors are actually fabric paint like Dye-na-Flow, not true dyes. There are two advantages to Dharma Pigment Dye. One is that the Dharma Pigment Dye paint apparently does not need to be heatset when used on polyester, so there is no need to bother with the AirFix; the other is that the paint is more concentrated, so it can be diluted with far more water. One 16-ounce pint bottle of Dharma Pigment Dye costs $28.95, but then it can be diluted considerably, with up to four pints of water. To produce an equal volume of diluted Dye-na-Flow, you would have to purchase two 32-ounce bottle of Dye-na-Flow, for a total cost of about $42, and then dilute it with no more than one pint of water.

With any transparent fabric paint, including Dye-na-Flow, and, most likely, Dharma Pigment dyes as well, you have the option of a technique called sunprinting. Dilute your fabric paint as directed, then stretch the fabric out over a piece of cardboard, or tape it to a plastic table. Either paint the fabric paint on, or apply it to the fabric before stretching it out by immersing the fabric in the paint and squeezing the paint through until it is pretty even. Working reasonably quickly, scatter opaque objects such as fresh green leaves, or star-shaped sequins, across the fabric, then expose it to either bright sunshine, or a hot incandescent, halogen, or infrared light. As the paint dries, it will be pulled out from under the light-obscuring shapes, leaving a lovely lighter-color pattern of whatever objects you placed on the fabric. This is an extremely easy way to create a nice design, even if you do not know how to draw or paint. See the top section of my page "How to Dye and Paint Fabric with Light".

Be sure to wash the dress as thoroughly as possible before coloring it. Any surface finishes or invisible stains will repel both dye and paint, resulting in lighter or even completely uncolored spots.

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