What color dye should I use on a bright orange felt hat?

Name: Rebecca

Country or region: Netherlands

Message: Hi there, I've got a gorgeous vintage felt hat which is a vibrant and bright orange. I'd like to dye this hat olive green or grey or black but definitely NOT brown. I have no additional material to do color tests on. I've had some "unexpected" results in the past by dyeing colorful items with black dye and I'm wondering of you know of any color charts which can help me better control/anticipate the outcome. I'd be willing to go for deep purple or a dark burnt orange or another color if I could just predict a bit better how this color and material would react to the dyeing process. Many thanks in advance, any tips/advice/links will be most greatly appreciated!

A bright orange seriously limits you in what colors you can change it to. You'll never be able to overdye a very bright orange to change it to any sort of purple or green. Purple can't have the yellow in it that orange has, while green can't have the red in it. I don't think a neutral gray of any sort will be possible, either.

The choices you have, starting from a bright orange, are burnt orange, red, dark red, brown, or black.

If you use brown dye or brown fabric paint, you should be able to turn a bright orange to a burnt orange. A pure magenta dye will make it red, while a true red will make an orangish red. A medium blue will create a brown color. If you use a lot of brown dye, the hat will be brown, and black dye should result in a brownish black. A blue black should result in a true black.

A nice way to visualize color mixing is with the Dye Mixer Applet, created by Olli Niemitalo, at

http://iki.fi/o/dye/dyemixer/ . Choose an orange dye using one slider bar, then use another slider bar to add on another dye color. You can quickly see what colors work and what colors do not work. It won't tell you the correct dyes to use for your hat, but it will show you what sort of color you want to use.

Another very important question is, what is the fiber content of your hat? It won't do you any good to choose the right color, if the dye you choose does not work. Wool felt or fur felt should be dyed with acid dyes. Acid dyes will not work on synthetics (except for nylon). Dyeing with acid dyes requires heat and plenty of water; the hat will lose its shape and will need to be re-blocked to restore its shape. You might also consider using a thin fabric paint, such as Dye-Na-Flow. Most fabric paints, and all thin ones, are transparent, so you should expect a fabric paint to follow the exact same rules of color mixing as for dye.

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Posted: Wednesday - November 02, 2011 at 09:16 PM

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What color dye should I use on a bright orange felt hat?

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