pegboard

I bought some backing fabric and washed it twice. My color catcher is still very navy blue. I'm afraid once I put it on the back of a quilt it will continue to fade. Does anyone agree?

The front is a flag with red, white and blue fabric. Any suggestions what color to use for backing and where to buy 108 wide good backing?

QuiltE

You might consider treating the blue fabric you have with Retayne to stabilize
and save the need to purchase more fabric.

Barb in Louisiana

I'd buy a white flat sheet and use it. Or a navy blue one if that is the color you want. Sheets don't typically have any color run issues. Hancock's was my go to Place for the 120 inch wide sheeting, especially when it was on sale for 50% off. I sure wish I had bought more before they closed. The sheeting is 100% cotton.

Peckish

This is how I treat all my bleeders. Advice from a hand-dyer.
https://www.colorwaysbyvicki.com/upl...edingquilt.pdf

Mkotch

Thank you, Peckish. This is a very succinct and useful handout that I'll print out and keep. If you rinse your quilt in your washing machine, do you have a top- or front-loader? Also, how do you dry your quilt - in the dryer or spread out on the lawn or...?

Pam S

Pegboard, I like ordering widebacks from https://www.thousandsofbolts.com They have a huge selection of name brands at great prices and their service is good.

LaurMac

I use this method for all the 'bleeding' fabric. Great!

Iceblossom

I had my bad bleeding experience from a dark burgundy/maroon fabric but am always most suspicious of dark blues. They can bleed quite a bit. I save my dye catchers and compare them, if they are getting better I'll just wash again -- but sometimes they need more help.

Last year I got a big bag of beautiful hand dyed fabrics at the thrift store. Turned out that although the pieces had been starched and pressed, the dyes had not been fixed at all... I went through a home dying phase myself and it is easier to fix the dyes when you make them and know what you used, but I used "heat setting" and some time at home with my car in the shop to make my fabric usable. A single piece big enough for a back is going to be hard to handle but is still doable. I was typically dealing with about 3 yards at a time.

First, I prewashed the batches of fabric in the washing machine with my normal scent free laundry detergent to remove the starch and get them thoroughly wetted. Then I boiled them in a bath that included both vinegar and salt (since I didn't know how the fabrics had been treated) for 20-30 minutes. Then I rinsed them again until they ran clean and nuked them again in the microwave 20 minutes on high covered with water in a huge pyrex bowl (plastic film the top). My bowl was large enough for a 3 yard piece but I don't think enough for a solid back.

Finally, after the boil, the rinsing, and the nuking, they were washed one last time as a regular load of laundry with a dye catcher -- which came out nicely.

I ruined my previous "biggest" pot fixing these dyes, it was an old beat up aluminum canning kettle. I used the opportunity to get an even better and bigger stainless stock pot. Stainless steel can be used, glass can be used. Anything else should be considered "non food worthy" after being exposed to chemicals you don't know. The plastic/melamine pasta fork thing I used to stir/lift the little pieces was also trashed -- thank you dollar store for useful items. Thrift stores have opened back up and hey, if you can get a big old canning pot or tamale steamer or something, that's the way I roll!

If you are still getting colored discharge after the first boil, when you are rinsing some of us swear by Original Dawn Dishwashing liquid as one of the supplies to keep on hand for life's emergencies. Do not ever put dishwashing liquid in a washing machine, it is much funnier on I Love Lucy than in real life. I know I was tempted by day about 5 and load kazillionith.

I found that Walmart has a surprisingly large number of fabric treatments available, like small bags of caustic soda -- in the craft section with the Tie Dye stuff. There is also a little Rit Dye display in the regular sewing notions, but the cool/useful stuff was a row over.

Peckish

I have a top-loading Speed Queen. I *never* would have been able to wash my king size quilt in my front loader. I try to avoid washing it in wintertime, but if I do, I dry on low heat. Otherwise I let it dry outside and try to keep it out of the sun.

My husband thinks that baking soda and baking powder are interchangeable. My kids say those were the worst pancakes ever. He also thinks dishwasher detergent and dishwashing soap are interchangeable. I came home from work and the suds were about 6 feet tall and were oozing out of the kitchen like The Blob. Love that man, I'm never bored!

To be clear, Vickie doesn't say to put half a cup of Dawn in your washing machine. She says to put it in your bathtub. After you've soaked the dye out and the water runs clear, then you can put it in your washing machine to spin.

Having said that, I *have* used my washing machine to soak bleeding fabric (not a finished quilt) and used a couple of drops of Dawn. It's a surfactant; it helps break the surface tension of the fabric to allow water (a solvent) to penetrate and remove excess dye. It's also cheaper than Synthrapol, widely available in any grocery store, and, according to Vickie's testing, more effective.