dyeing sofa covers?

katiesmummy

cezerpringle wrote: »

Bump!
Hi, Anyone know offhand how many packs I'd need to do a klippan?
Problem is Dylon have changed their dyes and I really want a dark coffee/light chocolate but the closest I can find is their woodland brown (the terracotta looks too orange).
what's the likelyhood of it going patchy?
Dylon say that it will go lighter if I use less dye and I do want it lighter than the dye colour but I don't want it patchy!

I would weigh the cover but it's in the washing machine right now so it's wet!

Anyone have experience of the new dylon dyes?
all I want is to avoid the sofa continually going grey! (bloomin cream covers).

Thanks
Ceri

I just looked on the ikea website as mine are Klippans as well and its says the covers weigh 2.2kg.

HTH

Minimoo24

Hello!

This is my first post, ever!

So, heres my story. I just purchased a cover on ebay for my sofa. its brand new and was £3.20! BARGIN!

It is a Ektorp sofa cover and Ikea say it is 4.5kg

I dont even know it will fit my sofa yet, it looks simular (but at the price I paid if it doesnt fit Im sure to make more money selling it on Ebay than I paid! always good!)

I want to dye it brown as it is currently pale yellow and my 11 month old Son likes to put his grubby little cute hands on things!!

So, How many boxes do you think it will take? I have found an Ebay store that sells 3 for £15.00?

Also, any cheaper way to do it other than this (tight I know!) lol

Thanks, I cant wait to hear back from you all and hope that you lovley peodple can help :-)

P.s) I would like to dye it red as I have leather tub chairs but I think thats just toooooo risky! lol.

katym79

Hello there - found this old thread on dyeing sofa covers.
I have an Ikea sofa like this one
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/IKEA-TYLOSAND-Sofa-SLIPCOVER-Everod-BLACK-TYLOSAND-/200670644555?pt=Slipcovers&hash=item2eb8e7094b

it is currently brown and i want to dye it black - is it just a case of weighing covers then getting that dylon stuff? to buy the covers in black is as expensive as buying a new sofa it seems. Anyone know what the dylon stuff is called and where is selling it cheapest??

Tone-controller

We tried this with IKEA Blekinge white cotton washable covers. Followed the instructions religiously, to the extent of using an exact quantity of dye rather than the nearest whole pack (in order to get a predictable shade). The results were, frankly, awful. Instead of beige, the chair cover was a kind of digestive-biscuit colour with pale and dark patches and occasional small spots of green and orange. When we put it to Dylon customer services they responded :

"Dylon dyes are formulated with the colour pigments to make up the over all colour, by using part of a pack of dye the formulation has not been correct.

Sofa and chair covers do have to conform to BSI standards and this does mean that they are treated with a fire retardant. The special finish used can interfere with the dyeing process. IKEA covers are normally fire and match resistant and the there will be a care label stating this.

We are sorry that you did not achieve the result you expected, unfortunately we are unable to offer a solution in this instance."

So -
1) by what quirk of chemistry does a partial pack of a homogeneous powder behave differently to a complete pack? This is especially confusing bearing in mind that a number of other factors remain the same throughout (quantity of water per cycle and quantity of salt) regardless of the weight of material involved!
2) if the above was provable, can you only dye items in increments of 600g by weight, so you never use a part pack? Or do you have to put up with slightly different shades when dyeing different weights?

£50 down and no result - not happy!!!

Edit - apparently this does not happen on older covers - the material was different, and any fire-retardant treatment seems to "age", so Dylon may well be fine for old covers but not much use for new!

suzyness

Alicia148 wrote: »

Hi everyone,
Just to let you know I recently dyed a set of sofa covers by hand. I figured they were too big to put in the washing machine and get an even result.

Firstly I bought two packets of pre-dye and used the washing machine to pre-dye the fabric in two batches. This took the sofa covers from a golden cream, to a very pale yellow.

I weighed the sofa covers (5kg) and worked out I needed 16 sachets of dye for a light - medium result.

Then I bought some dylon hand-dye from ebay - 16 sachets of pebble beige...

... Now my covers are dry they are a different shade to when they were wet, and not in a good way. Instead of being beige they are a dark peach! So, not sure why this happened. Was it the sunlight? Or was it the fact that I didn't use enough dye? (Remember the covers were already pale yellow).

The good news is the coverage is even. So I'm going to try again, this time dye them grey. If they end up grey, that's fine...

Hi all, My first post Yesterday, I woke up with the crazy idea that I'd dye my sofa covers and read all the way through this thread, set off to the shops and cleared the whole town of Pebble Beige Dylon dye.

I've done virtually the same as the above quote but by machine... and have ended up with a mustard yellow :eek: I think this maybe a case that pebble beige isn't going to work on the yellow base colour? I measured everything religiously!

I'm interested though - did you manage to dye them antique grey successfully Alicia148?

Has anyone tried mixing colours - I have some pebble beige left!!!

davehills

What happens is that Dylon mix powdered pigments together to make the desired colour.

For instance they might mix X grams of blue powder and Y grams of yellow powder to make a particular shade of green.

If you only use part of a box of powder, and it's not mixed properly, then you might end up with a different shade or another colour altogether!

That's why it's important to use the whole packet. Oh, and it makes them more money of course!

(Personally, I can't see why half a packet wouldn't work, if it was completely mixed beforehand, but haven't tried this!!)

sara28_2

i tried to dye my light brown sofa covers intense violet using the dylon machine wash but the colour didnt take does anyone kno how i can get it to work????

jonnorton1

Hey everyone. I have found this thread to be very useful. I am about to dye my sofa covers, including arm chairs. Suffice to say, I am not going to get them all in one load at home. So, we are going to go to the launderette.

However, the packs of Dylon we have bought are larger than those you all suggest on here (400g packs equating to 1kg fabric at lighter shade), and explicitly state on the back that you should only use one at once. Now, to do everything in one go, I am going to need about 13 packs even for the light finish. Is this likely to damage the machine at all? I will do an empty wash after to rinse it, but I didn't know whether such a large amount of dye is a bit risky.

Any advice whatsoever would be greatly appreciated, especially from anyone who has actually taken the launderette route.

Thanks a lot.

Jon.

cover_cover

Hi

I have Ikea Kramfors sofa covers in a Kvilla Natural colour. This print has a cream background and grey leaves on it. I am considering dying the covers with the intense violet machine dye from dylon.

Do you think that the grey leaves will stay grey or turn dark purple?

thanks

booter

cover_cover wrote: »

Hi

I have Ikea Kramfors sofa covers in a Kvilla Natural colour. This print has a cream background and grey leaves on it. I am considering dying the covers with the intense violet machine dye from dylon.

Do you think that the grey leaves will stay grey or turn dark purple?

thanks

Any darker areas usually remain as darker areas IYSWIM! So I suspect they'll be purple(ish)!