Blue Markings on old quilt top
 

I recently inherited a quilt top that was appliqued sometime in the 70s or 80s by my mother-in-law. This was from a kit and has blue markings showing where to place applique and also to show where to hand quilt. All of the applique is completed but it needs to be quilted. Is there anyway to get those blue dots and dashes out of the fabric so that I can have it quilted by a longarmer?

Have you tried dabbing the blue marks with plain water? Next I would try soaking a corner of the quilt to see if "lots" of water will take out the blue.

If that doesn't work, it gets a little tricky. But don't give up......Just try the water first.

Sometimes those come out and sometimes they don't. Not sure why. I'm guessing if the dots have been exposed to heat they will be hard to get out, but some people claim they couldn't get them out in the 40's when the tops were new and just finished. Good luck.

as far as I know, they are supposed to wash out. I did that with pre-printed blocks before quilting them. marks disappeared as they should but i then had blank fabric. learned the hard way.

They are supposed to wash out. I used to do a lot of embroidery back in the day and they were often marked that way. I remember having a hard time getting some of them out. Good luck!

I have done several embroidered quilts from kits and never had any luck getting blue markings out. Why not have it hand quilted or ask the long armer to follow the quilting design? After all it is part of the whole design of the quilt.

When I made mine, I hand quilted and did my best to have the quilt stitches cover the blue marks.

Thanks, everyone. I am concerned that time and heat may have set the marks permanently. And that the applique might bleed if I soak it in water. Good idea to have the longarmer follow the marks.

I think you will be pleased to have this quilted in the way the manufacturer intended. Most of those quilting marks complimented the design and are beautiful when done that way. Too, if there is any chance that the marks don't go away, they will be somewhat covered by the stitches. That's the way I'd go--whether hand or machine quilting. You have a lot of work doing the applique, don't "ruin" it.

Amen - I shudder at the thought of all that hand work with meandering going all over it.

Unfortunately, it's been my experience that not all the marks were intended to come out. I have worked several "old kits" and many do not. I don't know if it is age or on purpose.

Until the early 1990's the printing was done with a heat set process. There was no process for a washout ink. Report over the years have said only with repeated washing will they lighten but won't totally disappear. I assume it was the assumption that the quilter would cover the marks in the process of appliqué. Am afraid you are stuck with the marks.
It has nothing to do with age but the printing process. The wash out products became available in the early 1990's with the preprinted wholecloth designs. It was a few years after that that the companies printing embroidery blocks caught up with the process.

I have an embroidered quilt on my bed that my fabulous Aunt Mary embroidered and I hand quilted on the "dots" provided by the printer and the dots (and some of the embroidery lines) have never washed out and the quilt has been washed, dried, line dried in the sun, etc. for the past 20+ years. Sorry.

I just finished a runner with 3 -18" embroidered blocks that my sister did 13 years ago...she had done enough for 4 quilts, and I had the 3 left to do a runner for my younger sister...I was the one to get all my sisters sewing things when we lost her in 2004 to colon cancer...It took me quite a while to use her things, but what I wanted to say was, all the squares had the blue markings for the quilting lines..and everyone one has came out, when I washed the finished quilts and the table runner I finished up this past week. I washed them in cold water and a little washing powder... on gentle cycle...I was really worried that they wouldn't come out after waiting for so long...but so happy they did...Hope you have good results with yours...