So cross! (After trying to dye something)

To update: I got a Dylon machine dye in Poppy Red and used it to dye one white cotton M & S T shirt, a white cotton top and my linen/viscose dress with the bleach spot.
The T shirt and the top are so perfect.
The linen dress turned out really well putting the poppy red dye on top of the raspbetty pink original colour. It just came out a little darker. The bleach spot took the dye well, not perfectly, but sufficient that it is wearable.

Highly recommended. The dye was £4.99 and I did not use the pre dye. Thank you all for your guidance.

Thank you. I’ll try for a dye as close to the original colour and will use the pre dye

Coolgran, the dye I used for my bleach-spotted top did take perfectly - from ochre-ish to a dark olive green - it was just the stitching that didn’t.

But I did use the Dylon pre-dye first, to reduce the colour.
I think you’d need to do this, and hope to goodness that the stitching isn’t polyester!
The M&S trousers I dyed ages ago - cream to navy - evidently had polyester stitching but the result looked as if it was on purpose.
There was also a long, non-M&S linen skirt - a very faded navy that I re-dyed navy - turned out v well, but evidently the stitching was cotton.

This thread is perfect for me. I have several M & S linen tunic dresses bought last year because I've put on weight.. I loved the simple V neck shift style and eventually had 5 of different colours.

One is a lovely raspberry colour and got a splash of bleach on the front mid chest. Just in the wrong place for a brooch to disguise it. The splash is so small, barely the size of a 5p coin. I kept it hoping for inspiration on how to disguise it and never thought of dying it.

Bearing in mind the stitching I will look for a dye as near to the raspberry as possible.
However I've just seen Yorksha thread above and she says she has tried dying over bleach and it never takes.

It's 3am and I'm weary (insomnia) and just can't recall if others had success with bleach.

Had anyone had success dying over bleach?

I've tried dying over bleach but it never takes, I'm always left with a much lighter patch where the bleach mark was.

Bathsheba because I’m too mean to buy extra pens when I have lots already!

Did the same on a light grey hoodie. Coloured the dye spot in with felt pen and drew a pretty flower round it. Have to do this every time I wash it but get lots of compliments on it!!

If you have to do it every time you wash it, why are you still using felt pens? Use fabric pens instead and it'll be permanent.

Oh, I have a pair of Primark jeans that were a funny shade of blue so I used a pack of Dylon Wash'n'Dye (it's great, and so easy to use) to dye them black. I was surprised that the stitching stayed blue...but being jeans, that was ok! I guess a lot of garments are made of natural fibres but are stitched with polyester thread - very strong, but it doesn't dye!

Why not use it for gardening, decorating or some mucky household jobs?

Extravagant but were I so fond of a garment think 'what the hell' and go out of my way to find another.

Witzend - there is a solution - the dye you used was obviously for cotton/linen and did the job, but of course the stitching thread would be polyester and not absorb the dye to the same extent. You can buy a dye of the same colour for polyester (if you can identify that this is the stitching thread and seasalt should be able to tell you this) and dye the whole garment again. Good luck - very expensive item to ditch.

Witzend good point about the 100% label.
In the early 2000s I bought several items from The Earth Collection in South Africa.
I bought two dresses one in a darkish green and one in brown( they had different colours each year)
I went off the brown one and used dye go and was going to re dye it
The result was a lovely shade of pale green .
I never did dye it
The sewing thread was presumably 100% cotton.
I am still wearing the dress now
Must check to see if they do those clothes in the UK.

You can tell by the smell in charity shops that they don't wash everything!
Obviously nor do the donators.

Authoress
You've obviously never volunteered in a charity shop.

* Authoress* no they don’t wash everything! They steam it to get the creases out, anything dirty or unfit to sell( customers like nearly new or good clean Vintage items) goes into the rag bag or if too bad into the skip.

Must check the website in future to see whether it says the thing is ‘100% linen’.
Because if the stitching is polyester, it isn’t!

I did similar re bleach on a cotton summer top and where it had been spattered it had turned a pure white so I decided to randomly spatter the rest of the top with same bleach product. The end result was surprisingly ok- I washed it again and it has a 'bohemian' look but is wearable- actually looks quite good with white trousers!

Don't charity shops automatically wash every donation?

If you have a sewing machine, could you zigzag stitch over the ocre thread with a deeper olive green? It would still peep through, but with deeper green over it, it could look intentional and decorative.

Could you change the buttons and tie dye the garment? But I suspect you're just totally brassed off by now. We don't have Seasalt shops here but I'm aware they're certainly not cheap, I'd be very dissatisfied.

Same thing happened to me with a Seasalt top. I actually emailed (twice) to ask if the thread was cotton or polyester but they didn’t reply. Went ahead and dyed the top anyway, and it now has contrasting white seams. Can’t quite bear to throw it out as it was expensive, but it’s just taking up space, so this thread is encouraging me to take it to the charity shop. Maybe we should petition Seasalt and ask them to always use cotton thread!

I did previously think of using two Dylons together, half each, the sunshine yellow and a sort of russet. They only had the sunshine yellow in John Lewis the other day, though. Far too bright for me!

Can see myself spending yet more £££ on more dyes/pre dyes, only for it still not to look right. By which time I could probably just about have bought a replacement - if Seasalt still do that colour.
On balance, I’m veering towards the iron and the charity shop!

Could you find a dressmaker to unstitch it all and put it back together using correct coloured thread? It sounds a shame to throw it out!

What about re-dying it black, that way the stitching would presumably look OK. Just a thought!

Forgot to add, it’s not just the seam stitching, Beechnut, there are umpteen little fabric-coloured buttons, too - all a nice olive green now - but with ochre-coloured stitching on top standing out a mile!

I suppose some charity-shopper who’s as colour blind as dh might still like it, though. Which would mean having to iron the bloody thing first - I can never bring myself to take crumpled up things to a charity shop.