Washing fake suede/microsuede?

[Boreotheria]

I have a large remnant of distressed faux leather. It's thin stuff that shows the fabric weave on the back, and has both fuzzy and shiny areas on the front, because it's made to look like pebbled and cracked leather.

It's also black. If I wear this against a lighter-coloured garment, is the colour going to rub off on the lighter clothing? If I make gloves out of it will my hands be all grey when I take them off?

If so, how do I wash this stuff to get the excess dye out before I do anything with it? I'm thinking I would just wash it by itself in the machine on a gentle cold cycle, and then hang it to dry. Of course it's all synthetic and I don't know how it would behave when exposed to the dryer.

[twiterpert]

I've never had a problem with faux-suede bleeding onto anything. Run a scrap under hot water to see if it bleeds at all. If you'd still like to wash it, test another scrap beforehand - I'm not sure how well it'll take to machine washing, as the kind I've worked with suggested dry cleaning only due to it being a synthetic layer sprayed on cotton blend backing. When you wash it, the cotton shrinks but the right side doesn't, resulting in a weird, scabby appearance. If all goes well for the swatch, by all means, go for it.

[Boreotheria]

... Good idea. I can try that, thanks.

[Kelley]

It's good to test a swatch, and you can always burn-test to to be more certain of fibre content.

But if it was my fabric and it didn't seem off, I would probably just assume that it's 100% polyester and that there's very little I could do short of throwing the entire thing in a fire that would damage it, haha. :P

If it doesn't seem like the common 100% polyester type, then testing is about all you can do to see how it will go.

[Boreotheria]

Maybe I'll do the m&m's test. One of my childhood friends once rode four hours in a car with a handful of m&m's to see if they would really not melt in his hand. (They did.)

I should clip a piece of this fabric and tuck it into my bike glove when I go for a ride. Or put it between my foot and a white sport sock and walk around all day. If it comes out without having leaked dye all over me, I'll then say it's safe to make gloves and belts out of without a risk of colour transfer.

[Boreotheria]

Well, I put a piece of it in my sock for five hours of shopping, studying, and driving in a hot car today. There was a bit of black lint on my foot, which brushed right off. There's definitely a mark the shape of the fabric on my sock, but it's faint and grey and again I suspect that it's lint/particles rather than dye. So this bodes well for just going ahead and sewing with it.