About 5 years ago, I quit pre-washing my fabrics. Nor do I use color catchers. Even with all the quilts I sew up each year, it is rarely that I have an issue with dyes bleeding in today's fabric.
But every once in a while....
I'll be honest, I was hoping this would happen some day so I could share a product that I find to be a perfect fix for these annoying disasters. It is in this little bottle labeled Synthrapol.
I usually always check my quilts when they come out of the washer the first time, but on this quilt, I didn't see that the fabrics had ran until I had dried it in a hot dryer.
(Gasp...OK, that made me a bit nervous!)
But I quickly just threw it back into the washing machine with a teaspoon or two of this product and gave it a warm wash with a cold rinse. I was very pleased to see that all the dye was gone and the quilt was perfect again!
Then to really test that all the excess dyes had been removed, I washed it again and left the quilt scrunched up in the washer for about 3 hours. Yep...I was willing to take one for the team!
There were no problems whatsoever!
I get this little product at my local fabric store. So next time you are doing a little stash shopping, be sure and pick up a bottle to have on hand. It usually runs about $4 and will save you from some possible heartache in the future.
(BTW - I think the darkest blue on the edge is the fabric that ran. It was a scrap I had and is not a Kona solid. I am not even sure where it came from.)
Linking up with Molli Sparkles for Sunday Stash and Stitch by Stitch for Anything Goes Monday.
17 comments:
Great timing on this post. My quilting buddy was just asking if I knew of anything to help as a piece of wool bled in her wall hanging and she didn't notice before she put it in the dryer. I will pass along the info and get some Synthrapol to have on hand myself. Thanks for sharing.
This is a great product to keep on hand. I'm so sorry about your run and I'm happy it was fixed. Yay!
Very good to know. Thank you for sharing. I have already added it to my amazon cart.
Good to know, will keep an eye out for it for just in case
Thanks for the info Cyndy. I haven't seen that product before but I'm going to find some now, to have on hand just in case.
Great tip - I'm off to source it here in the UK :)
Glad you fixed the problem and thanks for the info on how you did it.
Thank you!! I'm going to be making something black and white soon and was really concerned about this. I'll buy some of the magic stuff pronto in case things go sour!
Honestly, I never wash my fabrics before quilting. I like the look of the quilt when the fabrics shrink and the quilting just pops out after that first wash.
I always figured, if it bleeds in, it will bleed out. Reds are usually the culprit. But if you re wash, sometimes twice. It will always come out.
This is so timely. Last weekend while re-pressing a seam that didn't press correctly, I sprayed on some water and the blue batik fabric bled. I used to have some Retayne that I used to pre-wash batiks, but I couldn't find it for the life of me to see if that would help. I then tried soaking it in salt water, which looked like it worked until I layered it for quilting today and saw more blue dye where it shouldn't be! I will definitely look for this product.
Thanks for the tip! I always check my quilts when I pull them out of the washer to see if they've bled (I don't prewash either) but I didn't have a plan for what to do if they did bleed. Now I know!
I will have to look out for that! Cool.
Ooooh! So this is an awesome post, and such a great link up notion to share with all of us. I haven't had a fabric run yet, but do always use colour catchers, and tend to shy away from reds (notorious!) Thanks for sharing and linking up!
wow a product that works after you discover the misbehaving fabric. I'm going to give that a try. Thanks for sharing!
Great tip. Thanks for posting these pictures. I've heard of using this when dying fabric, but I wouldn't have thought to use in it this kind of situation. I will get some to have on hand. I am finishing up a quilt for which I painstakingly pre-treated every blue on the front.....and totally forgot to pretreat the blue backing fabric! Just in case....I think I'll get some of this to have on hand. I also have the Color Catchers to try.
This post calms a lot of anxiety for me--I used to be a big pre-washer, until I decided not to be anymore, thinking I could always just throw in some Synthrapol in the first wash. I'm glad to see it worked out for you!
(I spilled Diet Coke all over a pile of newly-trimmed batik hexies today and saw that some of them are bleeding and I was freaking out a bit.)
Oh man....opur greatest fear huh! Glad you shared this hint under our Tuesday ARchives...we can easily refer back to it....well, I hope I won't have too...but just in case. LOL!!
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