frannella

Knock wood, but I have never experienced a bleed. My experience isnt vast (e.g., 10 years or more) but I have still sewn through a LOT of batiks. I always wash batiks in hot water and synthrapol before using but that isn't always possible when using precut strips. I tend to avoid batik jelly rolls for that reason, but a teacher who uses batiks almost exclusively suggested cutting out small bits of batik fabric and sewing them down on a strip of white cotton. She said to soak overnight in really hot water and then check the strip for color absorption so you know if you have to exclude any fabrics. I have tried her method on some Hoffman Bali Pops and none of them leeched color. Same teacher also suggested that if your background fabrics are also batiks it doesn't really matter if any of the primary batik fabrics bleed.