After my lovely trip to Modern Handmadewith friend Jaye to celebrate her birthday, I had some fabric purchases to wash. I've gotten lazy these days and just throw everything in one load with a couple of Color Catchers. And 99% of the time, it all comes out just fine. Not this time.
There was a whole LOT of red dye that was unfixed in that red solid fabric, and it landed on all the other fabrics in the load nstead of getting washed away or trapped in the Color Catchers. I knew I had to get the dye splotches out, because then all those spotty fabrics are a risk being used in any project, because that red dye that's landed on them isn't fixed permanently, it can float away the next time it gets washed, like to the rest of the quilt! Very risky, and it also looked pretty bad too in a lot of cases.
To completely get rid of the errant red dye, I used Synthrapol in two more washes along with Color Catchers for the complete win! I will use Retayne color fixative on the red and green to set the unset dye.
These two fabrics were so vibrant in the quilt shop, probably in retrospect TOO vibrant huh? They're Jane Sassman Hand-Crafted solids by Free Spirit. They are advertised as "hand-dyed" with mottled surface imperfections. I found that the hand of the fabric was truly lovely, with a slightly nappy softened surface, called peached. And the colors were intense (now I know why). 
This is why we pre-wash. This is why I'm supposed to always pre-wash in Synthrapol.
Lesson learned yet again.
3 comments:
Yikes!!! I hope you were able to get all the red off the other fabrics. Good reminder. Thanks.
I was able to thankfully. It was a bit of a wakeup call. I'm really glad I hadn't used that fabric unwashed in a quilt!
WHEW! What did you use? Synthrapol?
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