Batik Jelly Roll Quilt, concerned about colors bleeding
 

I am just about done piecing my quilt made from a jelly roll of batiks. Because it was a jelly roll, I did not prewash the fabric. The lady at my LQS knows I don't prewash fabrics, but recommends it for batiks "because they are dyed from the outside". So . . . my question is, should I try to soak the top in something before the quilt is sandwiched? Or wait until its done and do it? Or both? The fabric for the backing is also batik.

The quilt top has a gold (non batik) sashing. Appreciate all the expert advice.

I have only used batiks in 2 quilts, so I am no expert. What I used was yardage and I did prewash. I don't believe there was any excessive bleeding in the batiks that I used.

There was a time that I would prewash everything - would have been afraid not to. But this year I have completed 12 quilts that the fabric was not prewashed. (none of these were batik fabrics) I washed the final quilts with synthrapol and color catchers and everyone of them turned out great.

Do you have any scraps left that you run some tests with?

Don't do a thing but throw it in the wash with about 6-7 color catchers. I am a batiks girl and never prewash. The only batiks I am hesitant with are reds and navy's. But all's well so far.

I don't wash my jelly rolls either. I do use Color Catchers when I wash the quilt though. You may want to put 2 or 3 color catchers in with the quilt when you wash it. I wouldn't advise washing the quilt top before quilting. I did that once and it was a mess! The patches wrinkled, and I thought I would never get it pressed out.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]503815[/ATTACH]I don't think I would try to wash the top before quilting or you could have lots of fraying and distortion. I recently made a scrappy batik quilt and did not pre-wash. It also had white Kona cotton accents, and I worried about bleeding too. So after I finished the quilt (binding and all), I washed in warm water with about 6 Color Catcher sheets. There was very little bleeding, and the white stayed white! But I would use lots of color catchers in your first wash just to be safe.

Thank you all. I will keep working then and just use a lot of color catchers after I get it quilted.

I sew hundreds of yards of batiks.. and no matter who the manufacture ...you can not be certain they will not bleed. Use sythropol in the wash once you complete your quilt. Color catchers are effective, but I find synthropol to be the surest method.

Also, there are several previous posts on this topic you might want to read. In some of them Prism99 mentions Synthropol requires hot water to be fully effective and lots of water as it keeps the dye suspended in the water. Some say they use it and color catchers. If you do get some bleeding, do Not put it in the dryer as that may set the bleeding dyes. Instead wash it again with Synthropol, color catchers or both as the bleeding dye can still be washed out at this point. I only wanted to wash on cold water and just used color catchers and luckily didn't have bleeders.

I agree with the sythropol, but you can also test scraps if you have any left over from the strips. I amalso not a prewasher, but am currently starting to use batiks so have to be wary of it

Don't prewash. If you are concerned about the dye running use a color catcher. Batik is made with really hot water so it should not shrink.