Gee's Bend Fail

I bought this Gee's Bend "Medallion Variation" quilt kit from Windham Fabrics at Tuesday Morning a while back for about a third of the sticker price.  The quilt, I think that anyone who knows me, or perhaps even reads this blog much, is not my usual choice of colors, but something about its graphic boldness appealed to me.  What I wanted, too, was a hard-working quilt that would go camping or picnicking, and be not only hard-wearing (i.e. not show stains!) but bright and cheerful.

I was expecting the fabrics to bleed a bit upon washing -- they're hand-dyed, okay, there is a warning on the label that they'll bleed, "but they all [rinse] clear in most cases after one or two wash cycles" -- so I kept notes, curious about how the fabrics would behave.

These are the nine fabrics before washing,

and after,

All of the colors bled a bit, but with only a small amount of bleeding in the yellows and the lighter green and purple, a fair amount in the black and purple (which both bled reddish tones, curiously), and quite a lot in the medium-blue, which strangely bled reddish-purple, and the red.  Obviously, the red dye is the least stable by far.  But the red piece would not stop bleeding.

It was not clear from my initial research -- nor from the pre-washing instructions that came with the quilt kit -- that there is a difference between Retayne and Synthropol.  I decided that I didn't want to use Retayne, because it contains formaldehyde, and I think the less of that stuff around, the better, so I bought a bottle of Synthropol, as well as a box of Shout Color Catchers, also recommended.  In fact, I learned later, Retayne is for setting the dye, and Synthropol is for keeping the loose dye from attaching to other items in the wash (e.g., the other fabrics in the finished quilt).

I went through the entire bottle of Synthropol, perhaps eight washings, with absolutely no effect on the bleeding whatsoever.  I then heard that top-loading washing machines are much better at extracting loose dye from fabric than front-loaders such as my new and gentle LEG washer, so I schlepped the fabric over to my mom's and washed it in her top-loader.  Repeatedly.  Over a series of weeks.  I've now gone through all 24 Color Catchers, with no improvement.

By the way, the instructions on the Color Catchers to put the sheet in a lingerie bag if you have a front-loader machine are bunk.  Here is what you get with the sheet in a lingerie bag (far left) and with it loose in the machine (the other three) -- and remember that you want the sheet to come out with more stuff on it, because that means there is less of the dye on your other clothes!  The dark sheet is one of those that went through the top-loader.

I heard that soaking with vinegar and salt and very hot water, not just for an hour or so but overnight, will do the trick.  Not on this stuff!  The water in the dishpan the next morning was only slightly pink, and I thought "oh, that's done it at last!" but upon washing in my usual gentle cycle warm-wash cold-rinse, the white cloth tester was as pink as usual.  The sheet on the far right is in fact after the vinegar/salt bath, which instead of setting the color actually seems to have loosened it even more.

So, yeah, this piece of fabric has gone through at least FORTY washes, perhaps a third of those in a top-loading machine, in various permutations of Synthrapol, vinegar, salt-and-vinegar, and detergent, with almost no decrease in bleeding.

David was very snarky this week -- said, "Honey ... I admire your determination ... but it's time."  Twice.

It's more obvious, with so much of the unstable dye gone, that it has this "hand-dyed" effect, which by now looks almost like batik.

I suppose I should not be surprised a) that the kits were at Tuesday Morning, which is, yes, for stuff that didn't sell retail, or b) to find that Windham Fabrics has since "archived" this color.

Not sure what I'm going to do yet.  Toss it all out in disgust?  Use the pattern with non-"artisan" fabrics?  Keep trying??

Comments

[Ingrid]

I think that the fabric might be possessed - unless you want to blog a fabric exorcism...

[Mary Lou]

That is a lot of work for nothing. Or you can make the quilt and try to sell it as an antique!

[picadrienne]

I think I would go with an inexpensive cotton/poly broadcloth and be done with it. Based on using it outdoors, and wanting to keep the colors bright, I think inexpensive, modern may be your best choice. That red is really disappointing.