I have a problem and a friend of mine emailed your website to me in hopes it can help.  I have found it very resourceful but am still unsure what to do as I am such a novice at anything crafty.  My situation is my little boy has been attached to his blue blankie since he was born and he lost his blankie the other day.  I have another one exactly the same but it is yellow and he doesn’t want it.  He is so upset and I feel so bad for him.  This blanket was bought years ago and not in stores anymore.  I want to dye the yellow blanket to pale blue and tell him I found it.  I think he will believe it, I just have to dye it.
I don’t know where to start?!  The blanket is I think is 100% acrylic and knit.  I read this doesn’t take color well.  That’s OK if its not too bright because it is supposed to be a pale blue.  Do I have to mix colors to get this?  Like I said, I am such a novice.  Any suggestions you have would be so greatly appreciated as I feel desperate to get his comfort back to him.  

Usually it takes me a long time to work through the backlog of email I get, but I feel for your little boy with his lost blankie. Of course only part of the problem is the blankie's yellowness. The other part is that it is not worn as much as the other, so it feels different, and it does not smell right.

Since the blanket is yellow, you won't be able to get the same shade of blue. Adding blue dye to a yellow background creates green. Dye is transparent, there is no way around it. You cannot use bleach on acrylic, however. You might be able to remove some of the yellow with a product called Rit Color Remover. I recommend against using any brand of all-purpose dye, because they are not good for the uses most people put them to, but Rit Color Remover is an excellent product. Check your grocery store, pharmacy, and fabric store while looking for this product. It is displayed next to the Rit dye.

Not all dyes can be removed. Some yellows will be removed by Rit Color Remover, some will not. There's no way to tell until you try it. It will work better using the stovetop method than using the lower temperatures imposed by the washing machine method, but the washing machine method might work fine and is a lot less trouble. Be sure to buy enough boxes of Color Remover to fit your machine, if you try that first.

If you succeed in getting the yellow out, then you can dye the blanket blue. If the yellow will not come out, you will have to settle for green.

Acrylic cannot be dyed with ordinary dyes. All-purpose dye will not work, and neither will the good fiber reactive dyes we use on cotton. See "Dyeing Acrylic with Basic Dye". Acrylic can be dyed with basic dyes or with disperse dyes. I would recommend against basic dyes for a child's blankie. He might chew or suck on it, and these dyes tend to be more toxic. Instead, I would recommend that you use disperse dye, which you can buy by mail-order from PRO Chemical & Dye. Disperse dye on acrylic does not produce intense colors, but I imagine that you are looking for a pale to medium shade of blue. You can follow the "Immersion Dyeing Acrylic using PROsperse Disperse Dyes" instructions found at PRO Chem. You will need a large non-aluminum cooking pot to do your dyeing in. Follow the instructions closely. You can buy all of the dyes and chemicals you will need at http://www.prochemical.com.

There is no guarantee that you will be able to exactly duplicate the missing blankie, but there's a good chance you can make the yellow one more acceptable to him. Try the Color Remover first, because you can buy it in the grocery store or pharmacy. You cannot buy the dye you will need next locally, however, but must buy it by mail-order.

I hope that the missing blankie turns up.


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