quilter711

I am concerned that the colors will run on a needle turn hawaiian quilt that I am making. I have not washed the fabrics - kona white cotton for background and batiks for the needle turn. Do you think that the few blocks that I have done should be hand washed with color catcher? Should I wash the batik fabric for the additional blocks? Should I wash the kona white? I am getting concerned because of two projects that have been ruined. TIA for all your help!

HouseDragon

Oh dear! How many blocks have you made? I'd keep those blocks and use them later to practice quilting on.

Then I'd start over.

Wash all your unused fabric "by colour" using Colour Catchers. Any load with medium to dark catchers, rewash with those catchers plus another one: they keep soaking up more colour and the new one will tell you when "Mission Accomplished". You should see my pile of Colour Catchers next to the laundry detergent: sorted by colour and reused over and over and over .......

I prewash all my fabrics as I had my very first quilt ruined when it was washed the first time. Our sampler class had been told it wasn't necessary to prewash. It broke my heart and I never made another quilt again until over thirty years later. And, let me tell you, the changes in the quilting world were earth shaking!

Adding: the worst offender I've had so far prewashing was green not the proverbial red!

tessagin

I prewash everything. Just got some fabric at an estate sale this week. Dark colors. I used 3 color catchers and a white terry cloth towel. Washed twice with hot water. Color catchers came out pretty dark so I did it again. Same thing. Did it a 3rd time and all was well. Even the white towel came out white. Another reason to prewash is you don't know how many people have handled it. I was in a big box fabric store and it was a very warm day. Gal walked in sweating profusely and used some of the fabric to wipe the sweat. The clerk was so upset. She cut about a yard of fabric off the bolt then really chastised the gal for her actions. She just happened to get caught but tells you why you should prewash.

Prism99

I would test the fabrics you have. For each colored fabric you have, drop a small swatch into a glass of water along with a small swatch of the Kona white. Leave alone for about 24 hours. Look closely to see if any dye has leaked into the water. Swish the fabrics around in the water and leave alone for another 24 hours. Check and see if the white has picked up any colors. Some whites will pick up loose color and some won't.

Another way to test would be to machine sew a swatch of each batik fabric to a swatch of white fabric, then wash as you intend to wash your quilt. Observe whether the white picks up color from the batik.

At this point, I probably wouldn't prewash anything. If there is a batik that runs a lot in the test, then I might omit it or prewash just that one fabric. I wouldn't prewash an already appliqued block because the fabric could shrink and distort. Once the layers are quilted, the batting controls shrinkage and will not allow a block to distort the way an unquilted block can. If you feel an absolute need to prewash your already-made blocks, do it by hand and use Sharon Schamber's technique to "block" the blocks to correct size while still damp. (She has videos on Youtube.)

When the quilt is finished, the first washing is critical. At the very least, it needs to be done with a ***lot*** of water so that any dye bleeds become very diluted. Synthrapol in this wash is very helpful, but it requires hot water to be fully effective. If you do not want to use hot water, Synthrapol won't hurt but it also won't provide a lot of extra insurance that no dye bleeds will be picked up by fabrics.

quilter711

Thank you all for your help! Prism99 - I watched Sharon's video - very informative. I guess I have to make a difficult decision on how to proceed.