Duh! Did you ever do this???
 

A few years ago a friend purchased a BOM and never did get to do it. Her husband gifted it to me after she passed and I started with block #1 as a UFO project - read all the instructions - matched all the colors onto the chart. 13 BOM each it its little bag. Put together the first block, love it. The first block contained all the triangle and sashing material and like a good quilter I cut all of them out.

Yesterday I opened the second bag - much to my surprise there was a note in it that said "fabric should be prewashed before using to control shrinkage and bleed!!!! Well - here I am with 78 triangles and lots of sashing and one block finished unwashed! What am I to do? Yesterday I hand washed the finished block in Dawn dish detergent in my bathroom sink, patted it dry and hung it on the shower rod. Then I hand washed all those blasted little triangles and sashing, blotted them dry and hung them too. Then I washed Month 2 by hand. This morning I checked and measured the fabric and block - SURPRISE!! The block didn't shrink at all - colors didn't bleed in the block. I think good quality fabric years ago didn't bleed or shrink as much as today. This kit was purchased from Keepsake Quilting in NH - I am pleasantly surprised with the results!!! Only issue is I have to iron the blasted thing again - my nemisis "the iron".

I love keepsake quilting!! They were my best friend when I started quilting because they sold medleys not by brand but by colors or theme before I knew how to pick them out I bought alot of medleys from them. Great store! Good luck on your project your better then me I'm to impatient to prewash when I get started and they put those papers in all their fabric orders!

You have more patience than I do. I think I would have proceeded and washed the finished quilt in Retayne. I've never done a BOM - I frequently make cutting errors and I'm always afraid I'll run out of some of the fabric.

That would have been the instructions that would have been ignored by me. I hate washing fabric beforing cutting; I have done it, but still hate it.

My new favorite "tool" when you finish the quilt, wash it along with a shout color catcher and anything that may bleed will be caught in the little color catcher. I use them all the time.

i'm with the ones who would wait and carefully wash at the end. but, i'd probably color test a piece or two up front.

I'm with you I would have cussed up a blue streak washing all those "blasted" triangles...

You are such a good girl. I would have gone ahead and sewn it all together, washed it with a color catcher and called it a day.

Don't wash your finished quilt in Retayne. It sets the dye. Use Synthrapol on a finished quilt, and/or color catchers.

:thumbup: Oh yeah! I'd have read those instructions, put my thumb on the underside of my nose, flicked it upward, and gone right ahead and sewn them all together unwashed, LOL!

Jan in VA