Retayne Questions
 

Some questions for Retayne users:

1. Do you wash all your "susceptible to bleeding" fabrics in Retayne?

2. What is your determination as to "susceptible to bleeding"? I know red would be a good choice.

3. Can you mix colors in one washing?

Thanks in advance!

I prewash everything, usually with a color catcher to see if I have a bleeder in the bunch. I wash like colors togethers and don't mix colors. But I have done several different reds in one load or several different blues. If the color catcher is saturated with color I will test each fabric in the load by putting a small snippet in a white dish with hot hot water and let it sit to see if any color leeches out. By saturated with color, I mean vibrant. If I have washed a load of reds and the catcher comes out light pink I do not treat. If the fabric does not leach out additional color in the white dish test, I dry it, iron it and put it in stash for use. If it does bleed I treat with retayne. Definitely do not mix colors when using retayne because you could end up with dye release from one color to another so you will end up with a fabric that may be "muddy" from another color and the retayne will set it. I have had batiks be the worst offenders but often it ends up just being excess dye and when I do the bleed test I get no additional bleed from the fabric. You must use very hot water with retayne and future washes must be in cold water. Follow the directions on the bottle.

Thank you feline fanatic for sharing your process - I do the 1st step (color catchers) but now will add the 'white dish test' and retayne if necessary. Very helpful advice :)

I had an experience just this week with a yardage of purple that I want to use as sashing with cross-stitched blocks. I put it in hot water and, yes, it bled. So it went through several washings, still showing bleeding. Since I didn't have other product on hand, I tried the salt and vinegar treatment and gave up, finally putting it into the dryer. What I now have is a yardage of purple that I don't see evidence of what I think was a secondary design that essentially washed away! Is this possible that the purple yardage was put through a second process that didn't color set?

I only wash dark batiks. If it is still bleeding after a few hot water washes, then I use retayne. illinois, it sounds like it covered up the design by bleeding into it. That's a bummer, I have had designs weaken the same way. But at least purple is a great color.

According to a dye professional at the local art center here, Synthrapol removes excess dye from fabrics, not Retayne. [h=1][/h]

that's great info. Thanks! Does Retayne have a shelf life? I've had a bottle for several years and only used it on a small project. I have about half a bottle left.

Now that I'm thoroughly confused:

http://www.newpieces.com/weblog/?p=3398

Me, again ....... then I found this. There's also a video ....

http://mansewing.com/wp-content/uplo...synthrapol.pdf

I had a friend in my sewing guild who owned a fabric store. She always said to soak the fabric in cold water and a small box of baking soda over night and then run it through the regular wash cycle. I have never had a problem with this method. I have had fabrics bleed and I used the above method and the bleeding disappeared. You must do this before you put it into the dryer.

Retayne is used to set the color. I use a lot of red and navy fabrics in my quilting so I set the colors on all my fabrics except precuts. I soak my fabrics in a small plastic utility tub in hot water as directed on the bottle. During the soak, I agitate the fabric several times. After the soak time, I rinse the fabric a couple of times until the water runs clear. I then put the fabric in my front loader and run it through the rinse cycle. I prefer doing the initial soak by hand so I can actually see what is happening with the fabric. It is surprising to see the excess color that comes out of the fabric during the soaking. This method also preshrinks the fabric.

I have used (am currently using) Retayne that is 1-2 years old. It takes a while to use a bottle since you use such a small amount to treat your fabric. I haven't had any problems.

On precuts, I do the white paper towel test to determine if they are going to bleed.

Why not treat the pre-cuts, also?

It seems to me that a small piece of fabric would have the same characteristics as the larger piece that it was cut from.

I have always washed everything because of allergies to other fabrics in one of my four children. BUT.. then I made three crib quilts this past spring using name brand precuts. Then came the blisters to my hands, especially the right hand fingers. All dry blisters but the peeling was awful, catching every thing I touched. My doctor guesses the fabric is the villain, since it was the only new thing in my life.

SOOO.. I will have to wash everything in the bathroom sink with Eucalan and Retayne again. Retyne has really worked on the colorfastness because I have used colorcatchers with large pieces of the same fabrics in te washing machine and the catchers were saturated with color until I washed several times.

I will wash all of it again.

Yes when referring to hand dyes that are fiber reactive but even with fiber reactive dyes you still need to set the dye. For the most part any hand/home dyed fabric is going to have excess dye in it, it is the nature of the beast.

For commercial fabrics it kinda sorta does the same thing but it does not set the dye like Retayne does. So if you have a bleeder, which means that the dye used didn't properly bond with the fiber in the fabric, (there is a diffence between excess dye in a fabric and bleeding fabric and then there is crocking which is so much excess dye in the fabric it will transfer to dry surfaces with no water). If you have a bleeder, it will continue to bleed if you don't set it, even if you have washed it with Synthrapol. That is why it is recommended that if you have a suspect bleeder already sewn into a completed quilt to use synthrapol when you wash the quilt because it suspends the loose dye particles in the wash water so it doesn't settle on to another fabric. But you need a lot of water, much more than will be used in modern water efficient front loading washing machines. In these cases, I would just assume use Vicki Welshe's technique with Blue Dawn. https://www.colorwaysbyvicki.com/sav...g-quilt.html#/

Also as an aside, most modern chemical dyes are not affected by traditional old school treatments like adding salt or vinegar to the wash water.

Great advice. I'll remember this for the future.

I prewash everything. Reds, Dark Purples and Blues, as they all seem to run more than other color. I wash with a color catcher a couple of times or until the major bleeding is gone. Better safe than sorry. I do Red separately...mix the purple & blues

I have had at least one of every color bleed. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, turquoise, brown, black, purple -
Does not seem to matter which brand, either.