I just finished piecing a baby quilt with light blue and red flannels. I washed it before adding fleece for the backing and when I took it out of the dryer (about half dry) I noticed that the red had bled into the light blue fabric and now I have red dots where there used to be white dots. Is there any help for this? I rewashed it and let am letting it air dry.

Did you wash the fabric before you started to cut and sew?

Depends on how hot it got in the dryer. Often, once it's machine dried, the color is set... I would try Oxyclean. And don't dry it until the issue is resolved, or you've decided to go with the tie dyed look!

Did you wash the fleece, too?

I've found that different fleeces shrink at different rates.

AFTER I had sewn two layers of the stuff together.

No, I always wash the quilt top when it's finished.

Yes, I have already washed and dried the fleece. One less problem I guess!

Too bad you hadn't done it before all the work .... then you would have known what problems lay ahead! And could have determined whether you wanted to proceed with that fabric.

Or what you needed to do before you did all that work.

Yup. A day late and a dollar short, just like always.

At least it wasn't a king-size!

Try washing again with a color catcher. a friend of mine accidently washed some red flannel with a mostly white flannel, you guessed it she ended out with a pink flannel. Anyway we ran it through the washer again with a color catcher and was truely amazed. You would of never know what had happened. Hers had not been put in the dryer at all first though. Maybe it will work even though it had been in the dryer Good luck

Life is definitely a

"learn and live" process. :roll: :?

double post

i had the same thing happen to me. i used a package of color run remover made by carbona. it took all the red out of the blue and made it look new again. i got mine at joann's for 50cents a box (figured what did i have to lose?) look in the laundry aisle at the grocery store - i have seen other products made by carbona there.

This is why I prewash all my fabrics before sewing together. The flannels are especially bad for shrinking so they get washed twice. Try oxyclean, it does work good.

i would baste color catchers or carbona over the offending area and wash again.

I will look for the color catcher stuff at the grocery store today. Thank you for all your help.:)

When using different types of fabrics together, you should ALWAYS, ALWAYS pre-wash everything!!

When using FLANNEL you should ALWAYS, ALWAYS pre-wash. Flannel shrinks a lot. And you can see that the darker colors almost always run some.

Try the color catcher idea above.

Try the GrabIt from Joann's. It has worked for me. Do not ever put the GrabIt in the dryer or it looses it ability to remove the dye that ran. Just let it air dry. I would air dry the quilt also.
Caroline

Put it back in the wash with a dye catcher/dye magnet.

I've posted before about Awesome. a cleaning liquid. If you can find it soak your quilt overnight in it and wash as usual.. It got red out of one of my quilts that had been washed and dried several times.

Hi,
I just love red anything. I work with recycled wool garments. In my Wool Dye book, the author explains that you can use Tide powder no bleach to wash out extra color in the wool. I like to use primitive colors and black wool has LOTS of extra pigment in it. So I wash it twice in Tide and then I dry it in a HOT dryer. Then, I simmer it on the stove in vinegar water to make sure it sets up. The water is generally clear after the two washings in Tide, so I'm sure that is all you have to do. Tide will pull color out if you accidentally do what you just did - which is why I never use it to do my laundry.
Hope this helps! -Tori-

I used oxiclean and it took out all the peach color of my favorite blouse!!! Also used on fabric color runs and took out ALL color!!! NEVER will I use that again fabric cost to much to ruin.

Many years ago there was a rule....Always set anything that is colored red before use. I thought it is o.k. now, but I guess not. There are many ways to do this. Soak item in ice water..Does not always work. Wash in cold water and mild soap. and also soak in salt water. Be sure to test it for bleeding before using it. So Sorry it happened. You would think there would be a product on the market for this by now.

I would wash it again using a color safe bleach and 2 color catchers.

Get some color grabbers from the grocery store and rewash it with several of them it should take it out...

I think I read or someone told me a long time ago, to set your fabric color wash in warm water with some white vinegar. I do this, but never really knew if it worked since I dont use such strong colors. (but, Ive not ever had bleeding issues either)sharet

I always wash flannel and most of my cotton if they are bright or in the red family. I just washed a red that I can not set. i used salt water, tried vingar--still bleeds. One quilt shop told me to try "retayne" or synthropol? She said most shops carry it. I am going to look for it--she was sold out.
Not sure of the spelling.
SandyGail

Try Synthrapol--available at LQS. I rescued a shirt for my husband that had bled onto itself--big blue streaks across the entire shirt--discovered when I went to iron it. It has been washed and dried in the drier. Used the synthrapol with great success. Follow the intructions to the letter.

Oh Denise, you "sound" so chagrined with yourself it makes me sad for you.

Don't give up hope yet!

One thing to try is to take some tape (duct or masking) and dab it at the red spots. You may discover it's not really bleeding dye but just gobs of lint stuck in place.

If it isn't lint woven in, then try washing the quilt again, using LOTS of detergent and a high water level. If the red dye molecules are just staining the blue rather than actually molecularly attached to the blue fibres, the detergent and high water level will help them float loose again and stay suspended in the water.

If you try lots of detergent and high water level, be prepared to give it an extra rinse or three to get all of the detergent out.

If it were me, being a hand dyer, my third option would be to overdye with a light red, which would give the light blue patches a purple-ish tinge. I'd do it the low water immersion way, to get a lot of deliberate mottling.

And then if overdyeing didn't give me a look I was happy with, then I'd stencil with fabric paints or Shiva Paintstiks. If the batting is cotton, then the heat of an iron won't hurt it to set the paint or Paintstiks. If the batting is polyester, then I'd use Shiva Paintstiks, let them dry for at least a couple weeks (to polymerise as much as possible) and then toss it in a warm dryer to set the Paintstiks.

There's hardly ever a mistake in textile arts that can't be fixed, changed into a feature or transformed. And those are usually the pieces that turn out the most stunning!

I guess I'm trying to say that this is an opportunity, not a mistake to beat yourself up with.

never heard of this, but sounds like a good idea...let us know how it all turns out...

I went to a quilt show last Friday and someone told me about the "retayne" (I'm not sure of spelling either!) that got out the red from a red and white quilt she had made. The red had been washed and dried prior to making the quilt and it still ran into the white. I will look for this stuff at our local quilt shop. I probably could have found it at the quilt show, but I was on my way out and was exhausted and had already spent too much money! Thanks for your help.

I am also afraid that after washing this quilt top it will not look good enough to give away, let alone trying to sell it!

Retayne does not work that way. It is a chemical solution that SETS dye. If an area that was red came out after being washed with Retayne, that means that it was just stained rather than the dye molecularly bonded with the fibres. And in that case, any good detergent, such as Synthrapol, would have done the job. In fact, any ordinary detergent like Tide or Era or whatever, would have done the job.

I am not out to tell anyone what they should or should not do but I am trying to provide accurate information.

One concern I have about Retayne is that it contains formaldehyde, which stays in any fabric it is applied to.

Strictly for myself, I would never use Retayne on anything intended for infant use. Babies put things in their mouths and have much lower bodyweight than adults, so they tend to get a heavier exposure to anything in their environment than an adult would.

However, someone else's risk/benefit analysis may well end up with a different outcome than mine. It isn't for me to say what other people should or should not do.

Thank you so much for this information. I will definitely not use this stuff at all. I don't want anything in my quilts that could harm anyone, baby or not.