Not like, literally making your own dye. That shit would take forever, I think.
But I bought this fugly little BT Crump saddle, right? I hate all colors "warm" and the orange in this was making my eyes rot. The saddle was worn, I only spent a couple hundred on it, and I didn't think it would be a huge loss if I ruined it.
TL;DR: Iprobably ruined it.
I diligently read the tutorials by Amanda, Carly, and Nicole, bought my supplies, went outside the norms for saddle leather colors, and gathered my adult beverages.
I mean, if I'm going to potentially make an ugly saddle uglier, why not have some fun with it?
Hindsight, I sort of wish that I'd done the entire saddle in blue. But I opted to do the panels in blue and the rest in a conservative chocolate.
I followed the protocols in the real tutorials, deglazer, dye, dye, dye, dye, finisher. I was a little meh about buffing or wiping or whatever. The chocolate was super easy and friendly, mostly because I think I was covering brown with another shade of brown. Unfortunately, I drunkenly spilled half the bottle on my garage floor, much to the delight of my husband. So while I can successfully say that suede will happily soak up the dye, my knee patches still look like shit because I didn't have enough to go around.
The blue was a bigger issue. I had to do just shy of a quarter million coats and once I let it dry for a while, the finisher wiped some of the color off. I'm sure buffing at this point would have helped, but instead I just did another blue coat and let it sit for a few days while I forgot about it. #timemangement
When it came time to finally use the saddle, I didn't trust my stellar DIY skills and plopped it down on a navy pad while wearing crappy breeches. My friends told me that it was fine, it only looked like I shat myself afterwards. Since riding in it exclusively, I've got a nice little matte crotch rub near the pommel and equally exciting rubs from the blue panel. Part of me almost wishes I cared.
But I bought this fugly little BT Crump saddle, right? I hate all colors "warm" and the orange in this was making my eyes rot. The saddle was worn, I only spent a couple hundred on it, and I didn't think it would be a huge loss if I ruined it.
TL;DR: I
I diligently read the tutorials by Amanda, Carly, and Nicole, bought my supplies, went outside the norms for saddle leather colors, and gathered my adult beverages.
I mean, if I'm going to potentially make an ugly saddle uglier, why not have some fun with it?
I followed the protocols in the real tutorials, deglazer, dye, dye, dye, dye, finisher. I was a little meh about buffing or wiping or whatever. The chocolate was super easy and friendly, mostly because I think I was covering brown with another shade of brown. Unfortunately, I drunkenly spilled half the bottle on my garage floor, much to the delight of my husband. So while I can successfully say that suede will happily soak up the dye, my knee patches still look like shit because I didn't have enough to go around.
 |
| I feel like it's lightened a little bit. |
The blue was a bigger issue. I had to do just shy of a quarter million coats and once I let it dry for a while, the finisher wiped some of the color off. I'm sure buffing at this point would have helped, but instead I just did another blue coat and let it sit for a few days while I forgot about it. #timemangement
 |
| Orange before. |
 |
| Orange after deglazer and starting the blue. |
 |
| One layer of blue and splotchy af. Also, note the giant pool of chocolate dye in the right corner. |
 |
| 2+ layers of blue and calling this shit done. |
.JPG)
