Finding a good quality yellow, stretch, faux suede has been extremely difficult so I decided to take a chance with a white stretch suede and dye it. These are synthetics, so dying can be difficult. I decided to test two products: Dye Na Flow (sun yellow) and Rit Dye More Synthetic Fiber Dye (daffodil yellow).
These are two different approaches to dying. The Dye Na Flow is actually a very thinned down, heavily pigmented paint. The Rit dye is an actual dye.
To apply the Dye Na Flow I airbrushed it on to the fabric until it was covered and then let it dry. It covers the fabric, but even after dried, I could see faint traces of it rubbing off on a white sheet of paper. The directions say it can be set using an iron on the opposite side of the painted fabric. I did not heat set this in my testing.
The Rit dye is done with the same method as their other dyes: put the fabric in hot water on the stove and add the appropriate amount of dye. The swatch was rinsed and washed.
Here are the results of the two pieces I tested. The fabric is a 90% polyester and 10% spandex blend. The original color is on the left, the Dye Na Flow in the middle and the Rit on the right. The choice is pretty obvious here: the Rit dye is much richer and saturated with no color coming off. The only issue I see with the Rit is that the color is not 100% consistent throughout. This won't be a big issue with this particular fabric since it is supposed to mimic suede, and leathers aren't always consistent in color, but other synthetics may be problematic. Also, this may not be an issue when using the proper amount of water and dye per the instructions. I just winged it with a little bit of water and dye for the small swatch.
At any rate, the next step is to learn how to sew this fabric for Loki!
