batiks bleed??
11-17-2009, 10:09 PM
#1
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Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Wisconsin
Posts: 1,497
I was just reading search results for batiks (I'm in love with them and have a bunch coming from Hancocks) - and I read that they typically bleed a lot.... mine are mainly blues & greens and a little bit of fushia.... and the fabric will be used where animals and a child would be - so I think I understood that retayne stays in the fabric? So would washing and using the Shout color grabbing sheets be enough?
11-18-2009, 06:00 PM
#6
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Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Western Wisconsin
Posts: 12,930
I've never had a batik bleed. The modern dying methods are pretty good at setting dyes permanently. In the "good old days", many of the dyes were natural dyes and they often bled; these were the ones you could sometimes set with vinegar or salt. These days, unless otherwise specified, probably all fabric dyes are chemical dyes that are chemically set in the factory. Vinegar and salt don't set the chemical dyes.
If you want to set your own dyes, you can purchase Retayne. This is the dye set that quilters who dye their own fabrics use at home.
For purchased fabric, if you are unsure of bleeding, it's more common to use Synthrapol to prewash the fabric. Synthrapol suspends any unset dye in the water so it rinses away. Fabric can aborb only so much dye, and sometimes manufacturers are not good about rinsing away the excess unset dye in the fabric. Synthrapol will do that for you. Most quilt stores carry Synthrapol these days, and it is fairly inexpensive -- cheap insurance, IMO, against bleeding fabrics.
On rare occasions you might run across a fabric that will not stop bleeding. This means the manufacturer did not set the dye correctly. I would return a fabric like that if I had recently purchased it. Otherwise I would set the dye myself using Retayne.
Never use Retayne to wash a quilt, as if you do by chance have a bleed, Retayne will set it permanently.
If you have a quilt that has been stained by a bleed, you can often get it out by washing repeatedly with Synthrapol.
Hope this info makes some sense to you! Didn't have time to organize it.
If you want to set your own dyes, you can purchase Retayne. This is the dye set that quilters who dye their own fabrics use at home.
For purchased fabric, if you are unsure of bleeding, it's more common to use Synthrapol to prewash the fabric. Synthrapol suspends any unset dye in the water so it rinses away. Fabric can aborb only so much dye, and sometimes manufacturers are not good about rinsing away the excess unset dye in the fabric. Synthrapol will do that for you. Most quilt stores carry Synthrapol these days, and it is fairly inexpensive -- cheap insurance, IMO, against bleeding fabrics.
On rare occasions you might run across a fabric that will not stop bleeding. This means the manufacturer did not set the dye correctly. I would return a fabric like that if I had recently purchased it. Otherwise I would set the dye myself using Retayne.
Never use Retayne to wash a quilt, as if you do by chance have a bleed, Retayne will set it permanently.
If you have a quilt that has been stained by a bleed, you can often get it out by washing repeatedly with Synthrapol.
Hope this info makes some sense to you! Didn't have time to organize it.
11-18-2009, 06:36 PM
#8
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Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Lake Elsinore, CA
Posts: 15,188
I haven't had a batik bleed, but I did have a green batik that rubbed off onto my white quilting gloves. I had previously washed the fabric and hadn't noticed any problem then, and when the quilt was finished I washed it and had no problems. Still, my quilting gloves now have ugly green fingers. That's the only fabric I've had the problem with. But in the future I intend to pay special attention to batiks when I wash them.
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