scared to wash
 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]524273[/ATTACH]These beautiful bow ties were part of an estate sale, they are hand stitched and just such a pleasure to work with. The fabric looks to be from the 70's. I would have had to sacrifice one of them for a burn test and haven't the heart to do so as I'd like to use the remaining two for pillow shams.

So my question just have it dry cleaned? Would that "set" the colors.

This is intended for my older sister that I dearly love, it is for her guest room which doesn't see many visitors so she would only have to have it dry cleaned very occasionally.

Your help would be greatly appreciated

I read somewhere that it is not a good idea to dry-clean quilts but can't for the life of me remember why.

One thing I might do is get a couple of q-tips, dip them in hot soapy water) and rub over a colored piece. If the q-tip discolors, you know the fabric will run.

I'm sure others will weigh in with washing options from a loose rinse in the tub, to adding color catchers and/or using Reatayne and Synthropol. These products are meant for setting dies or catching released dies. I'll be watching this too because I have a red-white-and-blue one ready to be washed.

thanks great advice

I would hand wash the two bow tie blocks in a ***lot*** of hot water and Synthrapol to see how the colors fare. Chances are good they won't bleed. However, if the dark color does bleed, the bountiful amount of water will dilute the bleed and the Synthrapol (requires hot water to work) will keep the loose dye particles suspended in the water so they do not settle in the other fabrics. A bath tub would be a good place to conduct this experiment, or a top-loading washing machine.

Assuming the dark fabric is not a "runner" (never stops bleeding) and any dye bleeds are relatively small, you would be safe to wash the quilt at the laundromat using their largest front-loading machine, ***hot*** water, and Synthrapol. Just be sure to remove the quilt immediately after the machine stops so that the damp wet fabric is not staying in close contact with the white fabric. Toss in dryer (what I would do) or dry flat on carpeting or outside on grass ***in the shade*** with a flat sheet underneath and another flat sheet on top (to protect against bird droppings and also to further protect against light, which can fade fabrics fast).

Things you do NOT want to do. (1) Wash in a domestic front-loading washer. These machines do not use enough water to dilute dye bleeds. (2) Allow the quilt to be agitated in a traditional top-loading machine that has a central post. The central agitator puts too much stress on the quilt. (3) Allow the damp quilt to remain balled up. You need to flatten it out so damp dark fabric is not rubbing against damp white fabric.

There is no way to "set" colors at this point. It can only be done chemically on individual fabrics. Trying to use any kind of setting chemical on a finished quilt only ensures that any dye bleeds are likely to become permanently set where they do not belong. You want to use something like Synthrapol that will allow any loose dye particles to be removed from the fabric.

Personally, I would not dry clean a quilt like this, especially since you have a couple of blocks you can experiment on first. My expectation is that the blocks will still be totally useable even after treating as I describe above, as any dye bleeds should not settle into the wrong fabrics. I would definitely wash the blocks by hand to prevent raw edges from ravelling. (Thick rubber gloves are helpful, as is a wood broomstick for swishing the blocks around in the water.)

Edit: I like the Q-tip suggestion. However, if there is color on the Q-tip I would definitely go further and do the test wash on the extra blocks.

thanks so much working on the binding as we speak so I'll be able to digest this very helpful information. Now i'm leaning for hand wash, dry on grass between sheets

Cotton should not be dry cleaned. The chemicals are too harsh for the cotton fibres. I learned this is one of the textile classes that I took when I became a seamstress. If you take anything cotton to a dry cleaner they will likely launder it and not dryclean it anyways.

As for the colors running, there are sheets that you can put in the washer with your colored quilt that the dye will adhere to and not run color into the other parts of the quilt. My friend washed a red and white quilt with these sheets and was impressed with the results. She did this in a front load washer.

My own method of washing quilts is to use the handwash cycle on my front load washer / cold water / light spin / lay flat to dry.

Lay flat to dry works well over the back of 4 chairs that are spread apart, then the air can get to your quilt from all sides.

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Even if you decide to hand wash in bathtub in cool water, I would still put in several of the Shout color catchers, just to be safer. I have washed a few of my antique quilts in the bathtub and then dried outside, exactly as Prism described. I would also suggest that you have someone to help you with the washing process as the quilts become unbelievably heavy after they are in water. Unless I'm unbelievably weak:). One of the antique quilts had a dark brown fabric that ran and that was the one I washed by myself. I really think if I could have handled rinsing it more, it might have rinsed out, but that was not the case. Color Catchers weren't around yet when I did the handwashing but I always use them when machine washing my quilts now.
By the way, that is a beautiful quilt! Hope all goes well for you.

My vote is for the bathtub. Actually, I would test one of the blocks. Fill your kitchen sink with hot water and drop in the block. BTW a great hand dying blogger did a test on different products for bleeders and she found blue dawn dish detergent worked just as well as Synthropol for suspending the excess dye in the water. So test your block in LOTS of water. If you find it bleeds then do your quilt in the bathtub with loads of water but one one hint is to lay a sheet down under the quilt. Once you drain the tub you and a helper can pick the very heavy wet quilt up by the sheet and not put undo stress on the hand pieced seams.

There was a post here about washing antique quilts in a bathtub. I never wash anything any more without a few of the Color Catchers thrown in with what I am washing. I wouldn't advise using hot water.

I never prewash fabrics so I always have to wash my quilts before gifting them. For a single queen sized quilt I use the giant 6 load front washer at the laundry mat, warm water with a couple of color catchers. When it's done I look it over for bleeds and check out the color catchers. I usually only need to wash once unless it's batiks then it often takes a second time. I dry in the giant family size dryer 20-30 minutes on low usually does it. I'll put 2 twins and up to 3 couch or baby quilts per washer. Has not failed me yet.