It might be hard to see in the picture, but what I'm talking about is dying the stitching around the center console and arm rests to a contrasting color. Has anyone done that? I would like to dye the white stitching on my VDP to a brown color (to constrast my ivory leather) to match the seat piping, and hide future dirt that so easily stains the thread on my door handles and center arm rest. I have tried a fabric dye pen in a small and hidden area, and the result was not good. Any ideas?

Here is the link if the picture is not clear enough (the pictures can be enlarged)

http://www.jag-lovers.org/brochures/xj32_s93e.html

 

You could try some liquid masking for model making. Basically it's an overspray masking that you can paint on and then rubs off. so you could paint the seam with the masking and very very carefully rub off the masking on the stitching as that will be the high points. Then you could go over it with a liquid dye in a small spritz bottle, which should give you more complete dyeing of the thread. But I'd still worry about bleed through to the leather and and incomplete dyeing of the thread. Unfortunately the only method I can think of that would 100% work and look good is taking it apart and re-stitching it with the correct color thread.

 

Yup,....dyeing will get messy, look sloppy, and unprofesssional. Taking it appart and restitching would be better (more trouble than it's worth!), but old stitching has the old holes where the thread is now, and the new stitch will not match those holes,......and THAT would look crappy too. It's a nice idea (for annal people like me!), but the results would not meet annal people's expectations.

 

You best bet without restiching would be to take a needle. Dip in dye and have at it for a few weeks. Youre looking to basically tatoo the threads with a very minimal amount. Just enough to color

 

I was thinking with the restitching doing it by hand, taking care with using the existing holes. This is doable, but EXTREMELY hard and tedious to get right, as you have to properly tension the leather as you go, taking care to keep the stitching tight as well. It'd be significantly easier (but a whole lot more expensive) and probably come out better to send all the parts out to be re-covered in your desired material/colors by a good interior shop.

 

may sound crazy, but Sharpie does make an actual fine point. you can get em at any good office supply store. the felt-tip is the size of a regular ink pen, and the line
you can draw is about the same width as a regular ink pen. i'd try that. i dunno
if Sharpie makes a Brown fine point, but they do make multiple colors. yeah, it sounds crazy, but it'd be worth a try in a discreet location-- and go, or no-go from
there.

 

I have tried a fabric pen, and the thread took the dye very well. However, since the leather is ivory, there was some bleeding onto the leather, and trying to clean it off can make a mess. I also would be concerned of the dye smearing in the rain. I even tried a paint pen, which wouldn't smear, but the result was even worse.

I was inspired by this video:


If I were to wipe the dye off like that, it would cause a huge brown smear all over my Ivory leather that won't come off. Finding a good color match is also hard. I might take it to an upholstery shop to see what they can do.

There has to be an easy way to do this! I wonder why Jaguar didn't do this from the factory, esp for the VDPs with contrast piping. Contrast stitiching would really give the doors a bit more style (IMO they are a bit plain compared to the X300).