Originally Posted by
Cybrarian
Thanks for posting this thread as I have 2 projects I need help with and they are gifts so I can't mess up! I purchased some batiks that have an ombré effect going from dark to very pale (dark green to light etc) they are green, red, light orange and brown. So I prewash with Retayne? Do I put a color catcher in also? Do I wash them together or each separate? I also have hand dyed fabrics ranging from dark brown to a light mocha for a wall hanging for my son and a focus fabric of dark brown and metallic gold put on top of blues/greens batik ( brown and gold do not show on the wrong side). I would prefer not to prewash these, but down the road when it needs to be cleaned from hanging what is the procedure- dry cleaning? Hand washing? I'm sorry I have so many questions in one post, but I don't want to ruin anything! Bought fabrics at the Raleigh Quilt show and they would be very hard to replace.
First off, test your fabrics to see if they bleed. There's no reason to use either Retayne or Synthrapol if they don't. You can test it as easily as rubbing a corner of each one separately with a wet Q-tip to see if it picks up any color. You'll probably find most do not run.
Dry cleaning is not actually dry, it just uses chemicals instead of water, so colors will still run. Hand washing in warm water (with a few color catchers added if it has runners) is a great way to clean wall quilts. Block it after washing and let it air dry for the best results.