O.K. I blew it! Can you help?
 

Am new quilter and I did pre-wash all my fabrics and used a color catcher; one of my main fabrics (bottom of a block for 12 blocks) showed very little color bleed in the catcher so I thought it was good to go..........that was until having several blocks completed, I needed to wet spray a part to get wrinkle out, well you probably have guessed, it bled onto the sheet covered board I was using. My questions: How does retayne work? Would it be possible to use in a spray bottle to treat the bottom parts of these blocks to prevent further bleed or should I just tell recipient to be sure and use color catcher, there are all sorts of colors on the blocks and a lot of white too. Any other suggestions? Thanks so much for your input.

Sincerely, Antylu

NO, it must be used in the washer! It is like a soap!
Do read the directions carefully!

http://www.dharmatrading.com/html/eng/1981-AA.shtml

You absolutely should *not* use Retayne at this point. Retayne should be used only on yardage, before it is ever pieced into a quilt. Once a bleeding fabric is in a quilt, washing with Retayne can permanently set bleeds.

Your best bet is to wait until the quilt is finished, then wash with Synthrapol in hot water in either a top-loading home washing machine or a large front-loading machine at the laundromat. Synthrapol will suspend unset dye particles in the water so they can be rinsed away instead of settling into other fabrics. It requires hot water and lots of it (so the dye is sufficiently dispersed in the water). I would do this before giving the quilt away, and advise the recipient to use color catchers afterwards (or even give it two washings in Synthrapol before giving the quilt away).

If you have a top-loading washer, you might try washing with the Synthrapol as others have recommended, but stop the washer before it drains and let it sit overnight. I read an article written by a woman who hand-dyes all her fabrics, and she did extensive testing to find the best way to release the dye particles from fabric, and it turns out she had the most success with simply letting the dyed fabric sit in water for 12 hours. After that, the fabrics were colorfast.

I think you may run a risk of having your dyes settle in some of the lighter colored fabrics, but hopefully using Synthrapol will minimize or eliminate this risk. Another alternative would be to separate the fabric that is bleeding from the rest of the quilt and make it colorfast, depending on how much ripping out that would be for you.

Whatever you decide, good luck and let us know what you did and how it turned out.

For anyone who is curious, here is a link to the article I'm talking about.
http://vickiwelsh.typepad.com/field_...d-fabrics.html

Yes, I should have mentioned the dyer, Vicki Welsh, by name, thank you Tartan. :thumbup:

How big of a job would it be to change out the offending fabric in the blocks?

Most fabrics that have colored the water would eventually quit releasing color - when the rinse water was clear, I was fairly comfortable using the fabric.

HOWEVER, I've had some fabrics that bled and bled and bled and bled. After over 20 changes of water, the water was still fairly brightly colored.

Another HOWEVER - not all fabrics pick up stray dye - some seem to be resistant - and some aren't - maybe you could try soaking one of your blocks and see what happens?

I would not knowingly give a "problem child" to someone else.

Many of us have had similar problems in our quilting life. Certain colors seem to be more suseptible(sp) to bleeding so over the years I try not to use them or wash them multiple times before I use them in a quilt. GREAT IDEAS from our QB

From my experience - of soaking and washing HUNDREDS of different fabrics -
I've had some darks - reds, blues, blacks, greens, purples, whatever - not put out any noticeable color in the water.
I've also had some others - in just about every color - put out some color and eventually the water rinses clear.
I've also had some stinkers- and the colors varied - I remember an orange, a blue, a purple, a navy, a yellow, a teal -

I'm not able to tell just by looking how a fabric will behave. I'm getting better at making educated guesses, but I prefer to not take unnecessary chances.

I have not used Sythropol and/or Retayne. I feel I should not need to do any additional treating of a commercially dyed fabric to make it usable.

I also think using vinegar and/or salt on a commercially dyed fabric to set the dye is about as useful as clapping my hands to keep the hippos away. (I've clapped my hands - and I haven't seen any stray hippos here in Minnesota - must work!)

There are those that feel the soaking and washing of fabrics before cutting them is a waste of time, effort, water, detergent, and electricity. I've had enough "surprises" to convince me that it's worth the effort.

I want to thank you all for advice and tips; re: ripping out, at this point I don't think it would be a good idea as I have hand appliqued a lot of stuff on top of the blocks already. My guess would be to just keep going and then as suggested use the synthrapol in wash and also use color catchers in the event of bleed. In case I wasn't clear on that part, there is no bleed in the actual quilt block yet, it was just a part of the block that bled onto the iron board but that showed me that it will indeed bleed, I did pre-wash but evidently not enough, lesson well learned, from now on there will be no fabric that has the slightest bleed left ever go into a quilt that I make. I will advise recipient also to use cool water as I would think that would help. Again thanks all.