Help! When washing quilt blocks stained other areas of white during washing
 

My spouse found a recipe on this site using 1 scoop biz, 1 scoop oxy clean, per 1 gallon of hot water with directions to soak for 48 hours to remove yellowing in old quilts. I did this and got a long good except for 1 quilt the red quilt block dye ran into and transferred into other plain white border areas of the quilt where the red pieces were touching the white parts during soaking. I rinsed in 1 cup vinegar per gallon as directed and rinsed 3 times but have not dried the quilt. How do I get this red stain that has transferred to the white areas in numerous places now out of my vintage quilt. This is a very special wedding ring quilt my grandmother made and feel terrible now that the white is nice and white but ruined it with the red blotches where the red quilt pieces were touching during the soaking process. Please Help!!!

Check out Vicki Welsh at http://www.colorwaysbyvicki.com/. She experimented with all sorts of ways to get out color that has bled. There is a big box just below the title that says "save my bleeding quilt" . My friend swears by Retro Clean to get out old yellowing stains. good luck and let us know how it goes!

Try Synthrapol. You MUST agitate the quilt. You can use a top loading washer but agitate by hand. Fill washer with hot water and Synthrapol, stop machine, add the quilt, and then use your hands (covered with rubber gloves to protect against the hot water) or a clean broomstick handle to push down and let up on the quilt. Synthrapol works best in hot water so I would start with hot water but, if you are squeamish about it, you could try using Synthrapol in warm water first.

You may need to do this several times using fresh water and Synthrapol to get all of the bleeds out. I would spend maybe 20 minutes or so per cycle. When done with all the Synthrapol washes, do two rinses. It is okay to spin out a quilt in a top loading washing machine. Again, if you're squeamish, drain the water and hand press out excess water before refilling machine. I would use the machine to spin out the water from the last rinse, though.

Afterwards, lay the quilt out flat on a clean sheet to dry. You do not want wet red fabric touching wet white fabric while the quilt dries. This is also why you need to keep the quilt moving while it soaks.

Here is a link to a thread that shows how this worked on another quilt:
http://www.quiltingboard.com/main-f1...x-t144836.html
Be sure to scroll all the way to the end of the thread to see how the quilt turned out after using Synthrapol.

I have not heard of a bleeding problem like this with Retro Clean, but in my mind it is always risky to soak reds without checking on them every ten minutes or so during the first hour.

Synthrapol is widely available online, but you may need to call around to find it locally. It is often carried by quilt shops that cater to home dyers.

Why does everyone insist on washing quilts of Any age in hot water? It isn't at all necessary, and it isn't healthy for the fabrics.

The reason I would use hot water with Synthrapol is because Synthrapol, which is capable of removing dye bleeds from fabric, works best in hot water.

I would try to keep water temp to 120 degrees F., which is at the low end of hot. Medium dryer heat is 125 degrees F, so drying flat is often a better option than drying a quilt in the dryer. This is especially true of vintage quilts.

I have washed quilts in hot water and dried in laundromat dryers. These quilts are washed at most once a year. While the cumulative effects do add up eventually, none of my quilts is heirloom quality or vintage so I feel comfortable with this. I do try to wash only the first time in hot water, with Synthrapol, to get rid of any possible dye bleeds. After that I wash in warm or cold water, depending on how stained or dirty the quilt is (and I don't use Synthrapol if the quilt didn't bleed in the first wash).

Edit: In my experience, exposing a quilt to light is much more damaging than exposing it to heat by means of hot water and a dryer. Light degrades dyes more than most people realize. It think the current standard for light fastness of fabric dyes is around 70 hours of exposure to light. Direct sun is the worst, but all forms of light fade fabric dyes.

Thank you Beth. Definitely some options to try.

Thanks, sounds like Synthrapol might be worth giving a try with.

I to have a problem and I am watching this thread I may have to try Synthrapol but I was hoping a method to avoid the hot water I am a little shaky with that but I have a quilt that was in Paducha in 1998 and also in a magazine and the quilters art engagement calendar and thought I was taking very good care of it as I had it on a bed under other quilts and now I noticed a place on it that is running almost like it had gotten wet but how could that be when no others show any signs I will be watching for other answers but may have to try Synthrapol

My new top leader will not fill when it is empty...any other suggestions?

I had a polka dot top (I know it's not a quilt) that I got peach juice on. The top had a white background with multi color dots. I tried Oxy and several other things to get the stains out. Nothing worked. I finally got a Clorox pen and just dabbed the areas with the stain then washed to remove the clorox. It worked when nothing else did.