fabric bleeding

[Kathryn S.]

I know that a few weeks ago we were talking about fabric bleeding, I just can't find the topic (sigh- a senior moment?)

some of you might remember my turquoise quilt fiasco. The quilt was made with hand dyed by me turquoise fabric, and some other fabrics that I bought. The turquoise fabric had been washed heavily in Synthrapol before i used it, but when I washed the completed quilt, the dye ran! I washed it about 4 times in total, and it just got worse. One of the colors was a light yellow-orange which was supposed to be part of a triadic color scheme of turquoise, yellow, and fucshia. It turned out kind of a greenish yellow :cry: :cry: .

One of my friends suggested to use a product called Oxiclean, which I have never used before. Right after I bought the Oxiclean, I had a bad curry stain on my work lab jacket (not my curry, unfortunately!). The Oxiclean took that out, so I tried it on this quilt. I soaked it in a basin with hot water and the product, keeping it agitated. I probably did this 8 times. After rinsing it, I laid out the quilt on a table outside to dry, and most of the turquoise staining is gone :shock: :shock: !

The quilt is kind of stiff, but I don't really care since it's a wall quilt. So I feel better now

I'm just reporting, not recommending....... the quilt was a loss anyway so i had nothing to lose by doing this.

Kathy

[Kathryn S.]

I frequently use Oxiclean in my wash for clothes - especially in the toddler stage! and it usually works well for me. Never thought to use it on my bleeding red backing fabric for my Sottts quilt (you can take that as swearing or just a description of the problem - both were applicable at the time :wink: )

[Lois B.]

I think Oxiclean is wonderful. I can't remember the source of this recommendation but it was in reguard to getting stains out of heirloom items. It was recomended to be used as a soak for as long as needed to remove the stain. My friend had a beautiful old wedding ring quilt that my daughter wanted to use as a background for the altar for her wedding. Oxiclean got large deep old stains out of it and now that quilt is useable. Knowing that, I got out a beautiful white 100% cotton Italian Knit baby outfit my MIL got for my son when he was an infant to try to remove old formula stains. My son was 40 yrs old this year. At that point the formula stains were 38 years old. They all came out. I may have soaked them for as long as 3 days. I know that stuff works and it did not harm the colors in the outfit. There was blue cross stitch embroidery on the outfit that did not fade with soaking. I spruced up a number of old fashioned white cotton baby dresses that had been my daughters and pressed them up pretty and presented all those things to my daughter when she was expecting her baby. Unfortunately, I didn't know about this before my son's children were born. I checked and unfortunately I do not have pictures. I would use it again and I would repeat the process until I was satisfied. I would also wash and wash and rinse and rinse and rinse to be sure the product was removed at the process.

[Nancy R.]

Lois - Thanks for the good idea! I recently got a bunch of old table cloths from my mom and figured I would be stuck with the stains since I know that she would have already worked at trying to get the stains out. But she didn't have Oxyclean! So now I'll plan on soaking them and see how clean I can get them. How exciting!! That would be so cool if they came clean.

Nancy

[Lois B.]

Nancy, I am eager to see how they do. I'll be surprised if you don't see good results. It works better in hot water. If the fabric tolerates hot water use it. Change it if you have to leave it set for more than a day.

[Rita C.]

This is good to know. Oxiclean? Is that for sale in the UK Rosemary? I wonder has anybody used a product called Retroclean? It seems to be designed specifically for cleaning old linens, quilts etc. I would love to know if that works.

[Renata L.]

I'm not sure, Rita, whether OxiClean is sold in Europe or not; however you probably can find Vanish OxiAction, which has sodium percarbonate (like OxiClean) in it and MAY give you similar results. At least, it's worth a try if you can't find OxiClean.

[Renata L.]

I just did a search for OxiClean in Ireland... could not find anything specific but someone made a blog entry suggesting to look for OxiClean at Tesco or Morrisons. Don't know if you'll find it but worth a try...

[Norma H.]

I did a search and we can get it in DK. Rita here is a link.
http://www.pletfri.com/oxiclean.html
It's in Danish but I think it's good to have an idea of what to look for.
It is an online shop but they don't say if they send out of the country. If that's a problem I'm willing to help.

[Norma H.]

Rita, here in UK we have Vanish Oxiclean, which is what I use, to good effect - it is the one in the bright pink tub - all our big supermarkets carry it, and quite a few of the smaller Co-ops

[Rita C.]

Thanks Renata, Norma and Rosemary. Gosh I feel dopey asking that question when I could have just googled it myself! :roll: We have Vanish Oxi-Action gel here alright but I will have a look for the Oxiclean at the supermarket.

[Lotti D.]

reported