What do I do??? Help, please
 

I am working on a brightly colored quilt. And I didn't wash the fabric first. Dumb me! I was just pressing some of the red and sprayed it with my iron,now I have pink on my ironing board cover. That's not the problem. Do I continue with the quilt or stop, suggestions please!?!? I don't want the mustangs to turn out pink or orange or whatever color!
Laurel/oneteapot

continue on. then wash it and toss in three or four color catchers. and you may want to wash your ironing board cover later on with a color catcher or synthrapol.

I have some color catchers! What temp of water? Should I also use the synthraprol in with the quilt? This will teach me to wash my fabric first! I am so kicking myself!
Laurel

You have to wait until the quilt is finished to wash it. Follow the instuctions on the synthrapol label if you use that. I would wash with warm water and a bunch of color catchers in the largest amount of water your machine can use. Due to the saturated colors of the fabrics, you probably wouldn't see a bleed on them, but really look closely at the Ford logo and any other white areas. If you do get any bleeds DO NOT DRY it. You'll need to rewash.

It seems as if the only one that is bleeding is the plain red. I haven't sewn a lot of them into the quilt yet. Do you think it would work if I would just soak the 4 1/2 inch squares in hot water and dawn and then rinse and let dry.?

I would wash it in Synthrapol, which suspends loose dye particles in the water so they are less likely to settle into other fabrics. Synthrapol requires hot water to be effective. However, it is even more important to use a washing machine that uses a *lot* of water. Water will dilute the bleeds. Many domestic front-loaders do not use enough water for this. I go to the laundromat and use their biggest front-loader, but many domestic top-loading washers would work too.

In my opinion, Synthrapol is more effective than color catchers -- although you can use both. Synthrapol will even work to remove bleeds from fabric, although it can require several washings.

I would definitely try that with the fabric you haven't used yet. It may take several soakings to be sure that the fabric has stopped bleeding. Occasionally you can get a fabric that will never stop bleeding because the dye was not properly set by the manufacturer. However, it's more common for a fabric to be simply over-saturated with dye. In that case, each soaking will show less bleeding until there is none.

Edit: Oops, I see you have already cut the red fabric into squares. Try it with one square first to make sure the fabric doesn't shrink. Measure it before you soak, then after it has been soaked and ironed to see if there is significant shrinkage. Usually there won't be, or the shrinkage will be minimal enough that you can compensate for it when sewing.

I actually have some fabric that isn't cut yet. But I am going to try the squares first, if they shrink I will cut new AFTER I wash it.

It looks like it would be simple to take the panel off the added borders and start over.

If you have a HE washing machine, please be sure to add extra water to the tub when you wash your quilt. My mom just messed up a quilt she made me - red fabric that ran - and we think the reason might be because she didn't have enough water in the tub to keep the dye off the fabric (but it only "clung" to one of the four other fabrics; go figure). She used color catchers and did everything else right - but the water level was quite low. She didn't notice it and dried the quilt, so now I'm trying to figure out how to get the color off the squares where it deposited.