Can we dye a floral print couch?

Name: Cynthia

—ADVERTISEMENTS—

Country or region: U.S

Message: We have a floral print couch, which I think is a cotton blend. Can it be dyed? Will it rub off on our clothes?

Don't try to dye any upholstered furniture whose fabric cannot be removed. You must be able to remove the fabric for the dyeing and for the washing-out of the excess dye afterwards. Dye that is not properly washed, after the dye is applied, will in fact rub off on the clothing of anyone who touches it.

Here's an earlier blog entry with an example of what can happen if you try to do this, from February 1, 2008: "I just dyed our white canvas couch yesterday DARK BLUE with RIT, then when we went to move it inside both of our sets of hands were blue. HELP!"

Even if you could dye this couch, the floral print would always show through. You cannot dye a floral print, or any other sort of print, to make a solid color, though you can often turn it into a more subtle tone-on-tone version of the design.

Although dye will not work, it is possible to recolor upholstered furniture by painting it with a good quality fabric paint. However, it's a lot of trouble, and the cost of the fabric paint will be considerable, since you will need at least a quart of it, probably more. It would make more sense to buy a book on how to make your own slipcovers. The results of making a new slipcover will look more professional, and will last much longer. Fabric paint will tend to wear off of the most-used surfaces of the upholstery. To learn how to use fabric paint to change the color of upholstered furniture, see Scarlet Zebra's Instructions for Painting Upholstered Furniture.

(Please help support this web site. Thank you.)

Posted: Sunday - August 15, 2010 at 01:32 PM

Follow this blog on twitter here.
Tweet

getBlogName(); > getCategoryName("<$EntryCategoryFolder$>"); >

Can we dye a floral print couch?

> >