How do I dye some faded shirts without ruining the embroidery on them?

Question

I have some shirts (cotton/poly) that I use for work and some of them are very faded and do not look good. I wanted to try to use color dye on them but I don't want to mess up the embroidery on them that is a different/lighter color. Basically, I don't want the whole shirt one color. Are there any tricks to prevent the lighter stiching from the darker color dye?

Thanks

Answer 1

A lot will depend on your luck, some threads used in embroidery do NOT take dye very easily - and so can be fairly resistant to the new dye.

My suggestion would be to try and get a tiny bit of the embroidery thread and see if it takes the dye as much as a tony sample of the shirts main material. If there is a difference in the uptake you will still have the different colours - if not, you will the texture difference only

Answer 2

Well, if you are willing take the chance I would try:
Coating the embroidery with wax, perhaps a white wax crayon or even a candle..... soften it with a blow drier or hot water.
Dye shirt then place a paper towel over the embroidery and iron to soak up the wax. Washing should remove any residual wax.