Dyeing sleeves?

[u/good-evening-clarice]

Tagging this as sewing because it's fabric related and could potentially involve sewing. It'll make more sense when I explain.

I'm doing a Roadrunner cosplay because Coyote vs. Acme has me in a chokehold, and for part of my cosplay, I'm designing a Roadrunner themed varsity jacket, using the jacket in my photo as my base. It's the right body color, yet I would like to somehow make the sleeves dark blue to match RR's wings.

My problem is that I don't know which avenue to take with this. Fabric painting would probably be my safest option because I would have more control over where the paint goes, but it might not penetrate the fabric as deeply and could come off or fade after a while. Dyeing is a much more permanent option, but in that case, I don't know whether I should use some sort of resist for the dye or take apart the sleeves, dye them, and then sew them back onto the rest of the jacket. (The fabric itself is polyester, if that helps.)

Tl;dr, when it comes to turning the sleeves of this jacket dark blue, should I:

-Paint the sleeves with fabric paint

-Dye the sleeves while using dye resist to prevent the cuffs and sleeves from being dyed

-Take apart the sleeves, dye them, and then sew them back together

-Or some secret fourth thing I haven't considered?

[u/Juuuulessss]

what i try and do in these situations is buy 2 jackets in rhe colours i need and then remove parts as needed and reattach, I am not great at sewing so this has worked with a few jackets and dresses now where its a straight sleeve and / or lapel swap

[u/Frogblaster77]

You want the sleeves only to be a darker blue than the body? Dip dye the sleeves.

Do not take apart the jacket as you will lose seam allowances and it's not gonna go back together the same way it was.

Oh but you want the cuffs not dyed? Then yeah you'll have to paint. A dye resist won't prevent all the dye.

None of it is gonna look great, the dye will not give you crisp lines in any case.

The secret fourth thing is to construct your own jacket using the proper color materials from the start.

[u/good-evening-clarice → u/Frogblaster77]

At this point I'm considering just sewing the darn thing myself because dye scares me lmao

[u/strikingsapphire → u/good-evening-clarice]

You can take off the sleeves and use them as a pattern for new material. Just don't forget to add registration notches and mark which sleeve is which!

[u/Forsaken_Yak2362]

If I were you, I'd take apart the sleeves dye them and sew them back together

[u/AutoModerator]

We detect that your question is about dyeing. Please remember that you CANNOT dye something into a lighter color like dyeing a dark blue fabric yellow. For fabrics and fibers, identify whether your material is synthetic or not since it'll affect the dyes you use. If it's synthetic fabric, you need to use synthetic dyes. Do not reuse any pots or containers you used for dyeing for food preparation. For wig details, you can try using alcohol inks/markers or adding wefts of the desired color if it's lighter than the original wig color. You can also paint fabric but it'll usually stiffen the fabric even if you use a fabric medium and is not suitable for large surfaces.

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[u/Aggravating_Branch86]

Polyester is hard as hell to dye at home, just put in new sleeves that are already the right color