My Bleeding Quilts

I finished four baby quilts last week.  Three of them are bright - VERY bright!

As usual, I washed these quilts.  Knowing that baby quilts are meant to be used and will be washed frequently, I like to wash them myself before they leave my hands.  That way, if anything unexpected happens, it happens to me - not my customer.

Good thing I did, because the dyes in these quilts bled like crazy!

I was so upset that I didn't even photograph the damage.

I was sure the quilts were destined for the garbage bin (or animal shelter as dog beds).

I put four Shout Color Catcher sheets in the washer and this is how they came out...

If you think that looks bad, you should have seen the yellow backing fabric on one of the quilts.  It was way worse than this - believe me!  It looked like a 2-year-old had a field day with markers and mommy's lipstick. I was sure it was ruined...

The green and blue backed quilts were affected also, but not nearly as bad as the yellow one.

Naturally, I blew off steam to a friend and whined about my problem.  She found an article on the internet about bleeding quilts, which she forwarded to me, with hopes it might solve the problem.

Thank the Lord - it worked!!!!!

I won't share all the details here, because you can read it all for yourself HERE.  If you have ever had this problem with any of your quilts, or just want to be prepared for the possibility, you HAVE TO READ THIS BLOG POST!

And here is a direct link to the instruction document.

A huge thank you to Vicki Welsh for her research and testing.  Every bit of excess dye came out of my quilts and they are like new again!  (And thanks to my friend Ann, for finding the article for me!)

Cheers!