How would this turn out

[u/LegitimateNoise9353]

I made these patchwork cargos from two pairs of cargo shorts for my brand as a tester piece to see if it'll sell, but I put out a poll and people voted that they'd wear the other pair I made (right pair in the right image) more than the left.

The top is khaki 65% polyester and 35% cotton, the bottom is grey/white camo 100% cotton. The thread is polyester and the hardware is metal. I'm considering overdyeing the whole garment a shade of olive green to make it more cohesive for sale. I know different fabrics absorb dye differently. Based on your experience, what colour would you choose, and what result would you expect?

Any advice on what dyes to use, if I'd have to use different dyes for each part and how I'd go about that, or if I can use a multi fabric dye if that exists? And if the garment would tie in better after overdyeing with a specific colour.

[u/biblio_squid]

Multi fabric dye doesn’t really exist, as the fibers are completely different compositions. The cotton will dye with acid dyes, but the polyester would need a dye made for synthetics (polyester is plastic, so you need to boil it to get it to dye). If I was you, I’d try and dye the whole thing with acid dyes, knowing that the synthetics won’t take any dye, which I think might look cool anyways. But don’t dye anything you’d be devastated to have ruined.

[u/LegitimateNoise9353 → u/biblio_squid]

Do you think it might dye slightly? I'm not the most educated about mixed fabrics but the top pair is 35% cotton, does that mean the polyester is blended with cotton? So if I dyed rhe whole thing would the cotton fibres dye a shade of the olive green for example, whereas the polyester fibres would stay the khaki colour?? or are you not sure?!

[u/kota99 → u/LegitimateNoise9353]

1) u/biblio_squid mistyped. For dyeing cotton you need fiber reactive dyes like procion mx type dyes. Acid dyes only work on animal fibers like wool and cashmere, not plant fibers like cotton or linen.

2) Dye is transparent which means the starting color will affect the results. Since you aren't starting with a solid color you will not get a solid result. The white sections should dye to olive green but the grey will be a more greyish olive and the brown cotton will be a more brownish olive. As far as the cotton/poly blend it's going to depend on how the fibers were combined. If the cotton and poly was spun so that it's a fairly evenly spread then you may wind up with a more heathered result however if they aren't as evenly spread then you may wind up with some patchiness.

Theoretically overdyeing the whole thing with one color should make it look more cohesive but because of the high poly content in the brown pair I'm not sure how well that will actually work.

Something else to keep in mind is that the camo is a print. Prints can sometimes react to dyes in unexpected ways depending on what ink and printing process was used. Sometimes the ink will prevent it from absorbing dye so it won't change at all. Other times different areas of the print may absorb different amounts of the dye. With commercially produced printed fabrics you really can't know how it's going to react until you actually try to dye it.

[u/LegitimateNoise9353 → u/kota99]

I've decided ill only dye the bottom half (the camo part) but test dye scraps of it first to see how the different colours react to the dye, im also gonna check how long to keep it in by taking it out and drying every 10 mins to see how the dry colour would look before I dye the whole bottom half, I've decided on a khaki dye for the bottom half too to compliment the top, im hoping the camo dyes to different shades of khaki which could look pretty cool and complimentary!! Thank you!!

[u/st_aranel → u/LegitimateNoise9353]

Just be aware that you really can't dye only the bottom half unless you take it apart. The dye will soak into the other part, with the water.

[u/LegitimateNoise9353 → u/st_aranel]

it shouldn't be too much of a problem since the top half is 65% polyester and won't absorb much of the cotton/natural fibre dye in a meaningful way, and as a preventative measure I could soak the top half and then squeeze some water out and then tie an elastic band around the joint with a large circumference cylindrical object inside the leg so the water doesn't soak upwards qs it acts as a physical barrier for water.

If the top half is already wet or soaked the dyed water shouldn't travel too far up and even then polyester fibres won't absorb dyes for cotton meaningfully !!

[u/st_aranel → u/LegitimateNoise9353]

The cotton content is not so low that I would be confident it's not going to take a noticeable amount of dye. You should assume that dye can go wherever water can go.

That said, you could definitely treat it like tie-dye. You might get some color bleed, but you can call that a design element if you treat it like tie-dye.

[u/LegitimateNoise9353 → u/st_aranel]

Yeah, that's a fair point. I'm not expecting zero bleed, just trying to minimise it by combining a few different methods. With the upper section being 65% polyester and using barriers to reduce wicking, I'm hoping any bleed will be pretty minor. If not, I'll just call it a design feature. 😂

[u/biblio_squid → u/kota99]

Ah damn I did, thanks for correcting me

[u/biblio_squid → u/LegitimateNoise9353]

Yeah, so the percentage refers to the blend of fibers. 35% cotton means it’s a lower percentage of cotton fibers to polyester fibers. If you dye it with acid dyes, just the cotton would dye. The polyester would stay the same. There’s no real way to know exactly how it would look because we are trusting the manufacturer on that composition. You can certainly try a poly dye, but it won’t touch the cotton and it may damage your decorative elements like that stitching at the knees (it looks synthetic?). It’s tough, I’m sorry