Name: Sue

Message: Paula - any resource ideas for plain white canvas Keds sneakers (blanks for painting, so hopefully cheaper than keds)

I've found off-brand cotton canvas shoes at Target that dyed well when soaked in soda ash and then painted with Procion MX dyes. They were not particularly comfortable, since they had no arch support, but they were very inexpensive. Walmart or other discount stores might carry similar shoes. Amazon sells these Cherokee canvas oxfords for $12.99.

Amazon sells white canvas Converse shoes (see link) . If these are cotton canvas (or hemp canvas), they should dye well, unless they have had a water-resistant or stain-resistant finish applied to them. (Try spilling a drop of water on the fabric; if it beads up, it is water-resistant and thus no good for dyeing.) If you can find them without such surface finishes, even synthetic-fiber canvases should work well with acrylic fabric paints such as Lumiere or Dye-Na-Flow. For the greatest durability without heat-setting these paints, you can add a product called Jacquard AirSet, which catalyzes the acrylic reaction without heat.

Keds sells some shoes that are labeled as being stain-resistant: avoid these because they will not dye well. The fact that some are labeled as stain-resistant makes it seem hopeful that the others that are not so labeled are free of this dye-repelling finish. Their white twill shoes seem like a good bet.

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