Prewash with color catcher?
 

I have a yard of red fabric that has soaked 3 times now....water is still slightly dis colored- much less color than the first soaking. I will be using this red fabric with lots of white fabric....if I prewash the entire piece with a color catcher, will that prevent any bleeding when I use bits of fabric in quilts? Or should I just continue to soak? I prefer not to use any other chemicals with my fabric. Thank you!

No, color catchers do not pull color from fabric, they just catch the color from the water so it doesn't bleed onto the other fabrics that are being washed in the same load.

If I were having that much difficulty getting the color to stabilize, I'd add a 1/4C vinegar to the tub. When I used to work as a stylist for an upscale clothing store, we always recommended that to clients for the first wash for blue jeans & certain other articles with intense color that was likely to bleed. Vinegar and cold water helps to set the color. I've also done that with RIT-dyed fabrics.

I've tried the vinegar alone and the vinegar plus salt recipes, and they didn't work for my indigos. I ended up washing them about 7 times - that helped, but I'm thinking a Retayne dye fix would work even better.

The old fashioned vinegar setting only works with NATURAL dyes (plant based dyes) Today's chemical dyes need to be set with something like Retayne color fixative. It can be found at several on line sources like Dharma and Amazon has many sources. Just google it.

Hmmm... guess where I worked must use natural dyes because the vinegar really does work every time. There were a couple of times I forgot & boy did the fabric fade like crazy. And I haven't use RIT in many, many years. Just looked it up & sure enough they now say that vinegar won't work. I worry about chemicals, too, so it's unsettling that something with formaldehyde (even a little bit) is the only thing that would set the colors. Makes you wonder what's in the dyes themselves.

I keep old towels that have been washed and washed. Like old bath towels. I use these along with the color catchers. The bigger the towel, the more color it catches. I have found by doing this process. I have also used my husbands old undershirts. If you are still soaking, before draining the water off, put a towel in and let it soak up the colored water. Squeeze the fabric and rinse under the tap at the kitchen sink and see how much is still in it. We can get quite the water bill depending on how much fabric we need to wash. I do not want any bleeding onto other fabrics.

I use the color catchers to determine if I need to wash again. I'm a batik gal and sometimes it takes 3 times.

I would, at this point, find another fabric to replace that bleeder.

What you can do - take a small piece of that red - and a small piece of that white - put them in a glass of hot water with a dab of dish detergent and see what happens. According to a couple of the members here - if the white is resistant to that red dye - you are okay.

Personally - if I KNOW I have a bleeder - I discard it. I think of it in the same way as I think of spoiled food.

Although - if I still had the receipt for the red and I had purchased it within the last year or so - I would try to take it back to the store for a refund. I consider fabric that bleeds to be defective (unless there is a disclaimer on the end of the bolt -in which case I would have avoided buying it)

I agree. Color catchers are ONLY for catching any dye that might have bled from the fabric. I think that is one of the best invention in the past decade. Don't do laundry without them.