Thread: GRRRR! Fabric changed colors

Originally Posted by Scissor Queen

Originally Posted by Tippy

Originally Posted by chris_quilts

Originally Posted by cindyg

One thing you might try on any dark fabric is to give it a vinegar bath/soak and then wash and dry it. Vinegar helps to set the color.

What about the vinegar smell after the bath/soak?

If it's washed and rinsed thoroughly it shouldn't have an odor. I'd wash it a couple of times to make sure the vinegar is out as that acid could break down the fabric if not all washed out.

Modern dyes are not affected one way or another by vinegar. Vinegar is a mordant for some organic dyes. Modern dyes are not organic, they're chemical.

With grocery store vinegar it's not possible to have a high enoungh concentration of vinegar to do any harm to fabric. Grocery store vinegar is already only a 5% or 3% solution of vinegar.

Adding vinegar to the final rinse in a load of clothes will kill the detergent suds and help rinse the detergent out without adding the fats of fabric softener.

I have heard this from several different sources before but couldn't remember "why" the vinegar didn't work on todays dyes. Thank you!


If you ever take a class on threads, the one thing they say is to never use Coats & Clark thread. And if you use DMC floss or another type of cross-stitch type thread, you should rinse it to get all the excess dye out of the threads before embellishing your quilt with them.

The problem with poly thread being used with cotton is because the poly is so much stronger than cotton. This mainly applies to applique. There is a very good chance that over the years the poly thread will rub against the cotton fabric and actually end up cutting it, which is not what you want after spending forever and a day applying all that applique to a quilt. I've seen a quilt where this happened and it was sad. Now I have to say the quilt was about 30 years old, but I make my quilts to last and I honestly don't want to have to redo the quilt after I've done it once. JMO.

If you can find Blank fabric their black and red are wonderful. If you buy off one bolt and off another bolt, the color will still be the same.

Originally Posted by Donna Hall

If you can find Blank fabric their black and red are wonderful. If you buy off one bolt and off another bolt, the color will still be the same.

Now that is a good dye lot!

Blank's solids are not over dyed. So they can regulate the exact color in their printing runs.

Many company's "solids" are the fabric that was used during first runs, printed to check for motif detail alignment, correct coloring of designs, etc. during the printing process, but aren't used for final production. Some gets sent back to the designer for approval at various stages.

When enough test runs have accumulated, it is over-dyed with black and sold.

If you do discharging of black (and some other dark) fabrics, you never know ahead what you'll get showing when the over-dye is removed. Art quilters love this.