Message: Good evening!

I've come to your site for direction on various dying projects in the past, but now a friend has asked me to help him on something I've never encountered before.  I tried searching all over, but simply could not generate any answers that would encompass all my confusion.

My nephew has a white, two-piece 70% cotton 30% polyester suit that he is determined to tie-dye.  Appanrently the Dead are going on tour again (I thought Jerry died?) and he is 'dead-set' (forgive the pun) on turning this suit into a unique tie-dye garment.

I've dyed polyester before, and done tie-dyes on cotton a zillion times (yeah, I was in college once), but never a blend - and I don't have the theoretical knowledgebase to even know what the effect will be.

I know some dyes work great with natural fibers, others with synthetic... but I have yet to find a product (or a solution) on what to do with his 70/30 suit.

Is there anything I can do?  Or will I have to send him out to find a new suit? (he is  a collegiate deadhead - clearly funding isn't on his side, so I'd like to avoid this if at all possible)

ANY advice or direction you could provide would be a Godsend.  I would GREATLY appreciate any time you take out of your day to help me be a 'cool uncle' once again.

If you try to dye a 70% cotton/30% polyester suit with Procion MX fiber reactive dyes, you will get only 70% of the usual color intensity, since the polyester won't pick up that dye. That's not bad! I think you can get pretty good results by just tie-dyeing this suit in the usual way, with your usual recipe for Procion MX dye, soda ash, and urea. You will want to make your dye solutions up extra strong, and avoid using a lot of red unless pink will be okay. 

I've gotten some excellent pastel results by tie-dyeing even 50% cotton/50% polyester in the usual way. Of course the results were pastel, not bright, but they were pretty anyway. When I was dyeing for a little boy, I just had to be careful not to use too much red, since it turns out that pink clothing is very unacceptable to small boys. 70% strength colors would be better than 50% strength, though.

You have another alternative, too. You can tie-dye polyester blends by using fabric paint instead of dye. Not all fabric paints will stick to polyester, so be sure to choose one whose manufacturer specifically says that it will. All fabric paints made by Jacquard Products will work on both polyester and cotton; among their line, I would recommend Dye-Na-Flow, since it is designed to flow like a dye. More economically, you can buy Dharma Pigment Dyes, from Dharma Trading Company; pigment dyes are not dyes at all, but instead fabric paint. This brand is economical, compared to other suitable fabric paints, because you prepare it for use by diluting it with a lot of water. Heat-setting is required, after the paint is dry, using a hot iron or a commercial machine dryer. The look of the pigments will be different from that of your usual dye.

A third option, the most stunning, would be to tie-dye the suit as usual for cotton, wash as usual and dry, then retye it and touch it up with the true fluorescent colors, say, of the Dharma Pigment Dyes, for a more complex design that will really knock your eyes out under sunlight or a blacklight.

I would not bother with using disperse dyes to color the polyester in a 30% polyester blend. It's way too much trouble to do immersion dyeing with polyester, and since it's only 30% in your suit, it's not going to add enough to your final effect to be worth the trouble.

If you order the pigment dyes from Dharma, consider getting some dyeable socks and a paintable necktie to add to the outfit while you're at it. You won't be able to immerse the tie in dye, but you can paint it, and wouldn't that be an amazing combination with the suit?

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