Originally Posted by Rachel
I second the Retayne. Its amazing stuff and doesn't take much. I used it once on a baby quilt (purple fading and the quilt was a white background), its been washed over and over and the purple still hasn't faded. (I pre-washed with it). Now everytime I finish a quilt, the first time thru the wash, it gets Retayne.
Yikes! I would never wash a finished quilt in Retayne because of the potential for setting a bleed!
I do always give my quilts a first wash in Synthrapol (especially because I do not usually prewash fabrics). Synthrapol suspends unset dye particles in water so they can be washed away without settling into another fabric.
Retayne is really intended to set dyes in fabric. If you use it in a quilt with a "bleeder" fabric it will not only set the dye in the bleeding fabric, it will also set any unwanted bleeds into the other fabrics.
My bet is you have been lucky so far, as Retayne won't do any harm in a quilt if no fabric bleeds.
It's perfectly safe to use Retayne to set dyes in individual fabrics, or in a group of like-colored fabrics.