Dye And Deer Hide

[Tracym]

I am trying to make a duck hunting lanyard for a friend out of his deer hide. I have it cut into lace at this point.

I do not know how it was tanned and cannot find out - here is what I do know. It is very soft. He said when he got it back from whoever tanned it, it was sort of a weird greenish gray color. Now, it is almost white (just from sitting around). If I get it wet, it gets darker and looks a little greenish gray.

I have been trying Rit dye on some scraps. But the results are very weird. Tan dye = greenish gray. Medium brown dye = red. Dark brown dye = lavender (!).

I tried soaking the leather a little while before dying it. I heated up water, added the dye, soaked the leather for at least 45 minutes. Then soaked for 30 minutes in ice water with some vinegar.

My last attempt I soaked it overnight and left it in the dye longer. I'm not sure what the color will be yet, but I cannot seem to get it rinsed enough so it will not give off dye. As a hunter might get it wet, having dye all over his clothes is not a good plan.

What I am trying to do is get this darker - tan, brown, whatever, so it can be used for duck hunting (can't have it real light as it would stand out). Funnily enough, most macho hunters aren't really into lavender.

Any ideas?

[alyshae]

Dyeing finished leather like that can give weird results. Tandy flyers have shown them using their Waterstains on white deerskin, but I haven't tried it. I do know their claim of bleedproof seems to be holding up for my tooled leather stuff, so that might be an option worth exploring. The other is to use this lace for something else and just invest in a properly dyed skin / spool of lace in the color he wants, if there isn't a sentimental reason for using this particular hide.