Has anyone used fabric paint on upholstery?....

[MooMaa83]

....and what was the effect? I have a lovely old parker knoll armchair in horrible dark beige velvet fabric. I can't afford to get it re covered, and wondered about painting/dyeing the fabric. I don't want to completely ruin it though!

You can’t fabric paint it, it will go crunchy. Also you have to set the paint by ironing it on for at least 10 minutes.

You could only dye if, if you removed the cover.

I'm in the middle of fabric painting an armchair with Fabricoat. Really pleased with it. The website has some videos to show how to use it. I've found it takes a lot more paint than they suggest though, I suppose it all depends on the colour and type of fabric. Obviously you can only go a darker colour but they have a decent selection. I bought one bottle to test and liked it so bought a few more. That gave me an idea of how many I would need. Give it a go!

I don't think it would work well on a velvet type fabric.

Thank you for your replies. @toomanypaintbrushes I have seen the Fabricoat advertised. What material is your armchair? As @SoupDragon says I'm unsure about it on velvet. What I may do is buy some to test on the underside of the seat cushion

If you paint velvet with fabric paint it will squash the pile and make it go crunchy.

@MooMaa83 my chair is a cottony sort of fabric with a low pile. You need to brush the fabric between coats to remove some of the paint from the fibres and soften it or else it can feel a bit stiff.
I did a test on my next project which is a velvety type fabric and it worked fine as long as you remember to brush it well. Do a test and see what happens. The website says it can be used on velvet (I think the chair on their youtube video might be a plush fabric)

I painted an Ercol chair after much research. It wasn’t velvet though, it was 1980s upholstery. I left the covers on, sprayed it wet with water, then worked in dilute paint in multiple thin coats. Sand with the absolute finest grade of paper, it’s called ‘wet and dry paper’. Wax with wax jacket wax.
I have a thread on here where people have advised, and there are posts online where people have done it, and find velvet. The sanding is the key, it makes all the difference to the finish.

I also didn’t use any fancy paint, I used Valspar emulsion mixed to the colour of my sofa from a swatch.