Help! Color bleeding!
 

I am about one third of the way through hand quilting a large (100x100) Dresden plate. I have been marking each block as I go and spraying with water to remove the markings. Yesterday when I did this the color from the brick red sashing (yes, I did prewash) bled into the cream colored background of the block next to it. Is there any solution for this? Is there a product that will remove the unwanted color? Can a quilt that is only part way quilted even be washed? Should I just pick out the quilting and replace the spoiled blocks? What would you do?

You can try Grandma's Spot Remover or syntrapol on the stains. I wouldn't wash the quilt yet - you'll have a real mess on your hands then. There's a chance that when you are done and was the quilt with color catchers, all the stains will disappear.

I would also try using distilled water or bottled water to spritz the quilt - or try it on a scrap of the red and see what happens. Different water sources will react differently to the fabric.

Janet

I rewashed a couple pieces of yardage yesterday and used color catchers. I spilled some Sprite on it. More color came out. I've got other pieces of yardage in the wash now and more color came out. Glad I washed them and threw couple white terry towels in the mix along with more color catchers. This last load, the towels help absorb the bleed. The colors I spilled the Sprite on were red and black. The black bled onto the red and the red was a blue red but you could still see a bit of black. I went to the dollar store and bought some large white towels to help absorb the color. Helps. I wash in hot water throw into a hot dryer.

This post is from several years ago, but it has lots of suggestions and the best part is the OP was able to fix the problem.
http://www.quiltingboard.com/main-f1...x-t144836.html

The quilt police beware...I took a q-tip,slightly moistened in peroxide,and dabbed it on a similar problem...rinsed carefully with a little water....wouldn't do it to a vintage quilt tho.

Definitely read the thread that PaperPrincess posted. Wait until the quilt is finished, then wash the entire quilt. Instead of a bath tub, which is hard on the back, you can use a large top-loading washing machine; just be sure to stop the machine so you can hand agitate (do not allow machine agitation) in-between filling with water and Synthrapol and spinning to remove water.

Not the quilt police but unless you want your quilt ruined I wouldn't use any peroxide. You can read Leah Day's story here. Scroll to the bottom where it says Update Spring 2012

http://www.leahday.com/quilttheduchess/

OMG. I just went to that website and read the update. I will NEVER use peroxide on fabric again!!!

I threw the peroxide out of my house! Yikes!

Yeah peroxide has similarities to bleach in how it reacts, how awful for her