Well, just stumbled upon this thread, and I must say, this is disconcerting. I just dyed a pair of suede military boots using Angelus Suede Dye (as opposed to their regular dye for smooth leathers). Had to mix and match, but the color came out great. At least, for now... the realization that "suede dye" is not guaranteed to NOT run has me wondering. Now, I have had experience ironing suede or nubuck leather boots (these were Civil War reenactor's boots, reproductions of the 1859 pattern) with a regular clothes iron, the effect of which was to smooth out the suede til it's close to just regular, smooth leather. The heat of the iron also locked the dye into the leather, so that even when worn in stormy weather, very little dye soaked the wearer's socks. I realize this idea is not feasible for finer suede/nubuck items, especially if they are any color other than black... my recent boot project was to get them to a color today's army calls "foliage green", so it doesn't even work for me in this instance. Still, the idea that applying a hot iron to black suede smooths it out and locks in the black dye might be helpful to someone out there.
There is another idea I'm considering: it's more important to me that the boots don't run, at least not perceptibly, than it is to retain the fuzzy suede look. So with that in mind, I may just go over the green suede with a clear shoe polish, and really work it into the leather, buffing it off after. True, I'll lose the cool fuzziness, but at least the leather will no longer bleed all over the place, and I'll retain the color I wanted... even better than before, actually, since suede scuffs and discolors faster than smooth leathers in my experience.
Gil
