Sometimes I pre-wash all the fabric for a quilt. Sometimes I don't.
I used to pre-wash everything. When I discovered Shout Color Catchers I stopped pre-washing most of the time. Since most of my quilts have many fabrics, this saves a lot of time. When I am ready to start a new quilt, I just pull the fabrics from my stash and get started.
This quilt was made in 2006 and has hung on my living room wall pretty much since then, other than when I was teaching it:
The other day I decided to replace it with something else and wash it. I was pretty sure I had not pre-washed the fabrics.
I always use at least one Shout Color Catcher when washing a quilt:
Since this quilt has a lot of red fabrics, I used two Color Catchers. Here is the result:
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| White one is new out of the box, two red ones after washing the quilt |
After washing in the machine, I could see there was a bit of red staining on the back of the quilt but none on the front:
I love Color Catchers. They are a must-have!
ReplyDeleteI love Color Catchers. I still prewash as much as I can, though, because I want all the chemicals out of my fabrics before I start pressing them.
ReplyDeleteSeveral years ago, Margaret Solomon Gunn shared invitation about a method to remove bleeding stains in Machine Quilting Unlimited. I've used it several times with excellent results. Here's a summary of the article I shared with my guild members.
ReplyDeleteADVICE FOR REMOVING STAINS FROm FABRICS THAT HAVE BLED
In the May/June 2015 issue of Machine Quilting Unlimited, page 44, Margaret Solomon Gunn
shared information gained from the research done by Vicki Welsh, a blogger and maker of
hand-dyes. Her testing results can be found at Save my Bleeding Quilt!.docx
[colorwaysbyvicki.com).
To summarize, she suggests placing the quilt in a prolonged hot water soak in a large
bathtub with approximately 1/4 cup of Dawn Pure Essentials dishwashing soap. She suggests
using enough soap so that you get some suds, when you gently agitate the water. Hot water
forces the fabrics to bleed faster and more easily. You want the dyes that have bled to be
released from the fabric. There are enzymes in the Dawn soap that attract and trap the loose
dye molecules that are floating in the water, so they don't re-attach to fabrics. Vicki suggests
continuing the hot water bath for up to 12 hours, refilling the hot water every 2-3 hours, if
needed. The other suggestion that I found very helpful was to make sure the quilt was
completely submerged by placing large, plastic containers filled with water on top of the
quilt, so that portions of it did not float on the surface. Vicki found that using the Dawn
alone had the same results, as when used with dye-catcher sheets, or compared to
Synthrapol.
I used this method to remove bleeding stains from red fabrics in two different quilts with
excellent results. All of the stains were gone, when I checked it after only an hour of soaking.
Shared by Laurie Mayo
Great info I forgot about. Thanks for sharing, Laurie.
DeleteDawn is “my go to” when washing quilts. I use the same method as Laurie states above.
DeleteI prewash everything. My rule is fabric doesn't leave the laundry room until the Color Catchers are pretty close to white. I used to do the save my bleeding quilt thing to stablize my fabric, but now I use mostly Retayne or Sythrapol or sometimes both. I've found teal blues are also very problematic.
ReplyDeletePat A
I am not consistent with my pre-washing. When I do, I put in 2 color catchers. And my niece taught me they can be used multiple times.
ReplyDeleteColor catchers are great—thanks for the information. I don’t like to pre-wash because the fabric loses that crisp finish (or it could be that I am lazy—Nah!). But I do not like the frayed edges after washing —I have seen basting stitches on the edges or even serged edges. I do worry about shrinkage, but your quilt looks wonderful and it didn’t shrink!
ReplyDeleteWhen I gift a quilt, color catchers are gifted with it!
ReplyDeleteI made a Christmas quilt from a kit and put a red and white print background on it. I did not wash the fabrics first so after it was quilted and bound I washed it with 2 color catchers. They were red so I did a second wash with 2 more and one was slightly pink and the other white. No color on the front white areas. I was pleased with the results.
ReplyDeleteI recently washed a lot of reds in separate washes, and I added two color catchers. They came our red, so I washed again and got the same results but not so red. The third wash came out with white color catchers.
ReplyDeleteI’ve decided that the color catchers don’t draw the color out of the fabric, but they just indicate how much color was in the water. So if it’s still colored, you need to wash again.
I prewash all fabric. If it is bright, dark, hand-dyed, or a medium to dark batik, I soak it in hot water and Dawn until the water is clear. Is it a pain? Yes. However, my quilts don’t bleed, either, which is a win in my book. I do use Color Catchers on occasion, and sometimes gift them, especially with baby quilts.
ReplyDelete