oh boy, I have done it now!!! Bought some lovely beige fabric from Hobby Lobby in Elhart, Indiana in July thinking I bought enough for the project I am working on. WRONG! Now, I am searching all over the place for this exact shade of beige - who knew there were so many shades of beige!!! Anyway, at Joann's yesterday, the gal helping me told me about a Hobby Lobby in Sterling Heights, MI that is about 1/2 hour drive from me. I will go there today and hope I can match it.
On the way home from Joann's, I stopped by the LQS thinking they might have some, but they carry very little solid colors of fabric.
While I was there, I was fondling the new batiks she has just gotten in... when I got home, my hand stunk!!! Oh my - it really STUNK! Have you ever experienced batiks that smell?? I am glad I didn't buy any.

Hmmm, I haven't noticed this before. Will have to check this out.

It is the dye, when it is washed it should wash out the odor.

NO - just hand washed and line dried over 200 different pieces of batik and none of them stunk at all. I started buying fat quarters for a quilt that needed 30 different fat quarters and then discovered how beautiful they were - so then started buying 1/2 yard cuts - just counted after drying and sorted the colors and have over 200. BTW - had to throw away two pieces as they never did stop bleeding.

It may be the difference in where they are made. I did have some pieces that had an odor but it washed out.

BTW, is line drying just your preferred method? I usually dry mine in the dryer.

Yuck!!! :?

It is likely some part of the dye process. Or a friend was telling me that years ago she got some Thai silk that had a terrible odor as it had apparently been sprayed for bugs somewhere in the import/export process.

Ugh! that just leaves a bad feeling...

BTW, is line drying just your preferred method? I usually dry mine in the dryer.[/quote]

Guess that I was afraid that they might fray too much if tossed in the dryer. We have a fireplace in the corner of our living room and we have hooks on two sides so that we can put up a clothes line to dry things in the winter when the fireplace is on - so had DH to put up the clothesline and I "washed" evey piece of batik that I have been buying for the past year - "washed" in a white kitchen dishpan - just swished around a bit with a little soap - then rinsed until the water ran clear - then had lots of big fluffy towels on the kitchen counters and rolled up the fabric in towels and then just put on the clothes lines - no clothes pins needed. Very little ironing will be needed when I get around to making a quilt out of them. I could do about 3 "clothesline loads" a day and it took me a week to do all of them. DH now fully appreciates how beautiful that these batiks are after seeing them all displayed in the living room for a week!

If you dont find what your looking for let me know. I only live about 25mins from that Hobby Lobby. I can go check for you.