Dying a thin cotton dress from peach to...what?

[PolkadotsAndMoonbeams]

I have a cotton summer dress that's faded massively, but the fabric's fine, and I love the shape, so I thought I'd dye it and get more wear out of it.

I don't know whether to bleach it first or just dye over it. I presume if I'm dying over it I should stick to pink/red colours?

I have dyed things before, but it's been a while, and I think I've only dyed from white before.

So, what colour do you think I should dye it, and would you bleach it first?

If it helps with the 'what colour' bit, I have red-brown hair and green eyes.

I would stick to orange / brown shades, but just be careful as the thread that stitched it together may be polyester and won't take the dye

Oh thank you, I'll keep an eye out for that. I suppose even if it doesn't take on the thread and it looks awful, I'll be no worse off than I am now (well, the cost of some Dylon but that's it ).

Would you just use the hand dye? I have used the machine one before, but think it would be overkill for just one item.

Why not try tie-dye? A dark grey or slate colour would work well with peach. No worries then about slightly uneven take up of dye.

Definitely avoid bleach. on an older fabric it could reduce it's strength and rip while you are wearing it!

You will have to stick to similar colours otherwise it will go brown

ooh, an orange would look with peach stitching

Dylon do a product that will get rid of the old colour.

I'm having a bit of a dying frenzy at the moment. Dyed some off dd's dresses bright pink and dipdyed some yellow t shirts with the same pink, so that they go from yellow to peach.

Contrast stitching can look really nice.

Hand-dyeing gave me a better result than machine. Excellent idea to try tie-dying, thankyou.

Thank you, I'll give it a go (although probably when the weather improves, everything's so wet at the moment, I don't wan to make more things wet on purpose!).