Does anybody know what does happen to the strike-offs, the initial test printings that the fabric manufacturers have made, so that they can approve the design and colors before doing their large production runs?

I think that most of the strike-offs go back to the manufacturer (from the overseas printing mills) and become sample swatches for their sales force, or demo projects that can be displayed at Quilt Market or shown on their blogs and websites, to help sell the collection.

But I wonder what happens to the rejects? As in, if somebody at the mill loads the wrong greige goods onto the printing machine... or uses a color of dye that's not quite right... or they forget to load in one screen, so a color is missing... you get the picture.

Do they trash it? Sell it off as pound goods (for recycling)? Does it get sold as no-name seconds?

Anyone here know more about this aspect of the business?