Ask The Two Chums

If you’ve been one of our readers for a while, you know that we frequently encourage our chums to write us and ask questions on any variety of topics.  Between us we have a fair amount of experience and knowledge on a wide range of topics.  We are more than happy to share what we know, but even more happy to invite all of you to contribute what you know about any question that comes up. The other day our chum Sandy asked if we could help her with a problem.  Sandy makes beautiful quilts.  She has made them for both of us much to our delight 🙂  She recently made a Christmas one with a red border.  When it was finished she realized the fabric she had used, was one she had used some time ago on another quilt. When that first one was washed, the red fabric bled.  So, her question to us was about how to keep the red fabric from discoloring the lighter fabrics in the quilt.  Most especially, the cream colored background fabric of each square.

We had heard that using salt was a good way to set darker colors and keep them from bleeding.  We had tried it on a pair of black jeans some time back  If you’ve ever owned black jeans you know that it is common for the color to run when they are washed, even in cold water, and common for the color to “rub off” on anything light colored that you  may sit on.  So we added salt to a tub of water and soaked the jeans in the salt water.  Then we washed them in cold water and added more salt to the washing machine during the wash cycle.  It worked.

When Sandy finishes a quilt, she always washes and dries it to make it soft and ready for whomever will have the joy of using or owning it.  When she asked how to keep her quilt from being damaged in the wash, we wanted to be sure we had the right answer.  She had spent a lot of time and a lot of money making the quilt.  The stakes were a lot higher than a pair of black jeans.  So we did some homework to confirm that the salt method of setting colors we had used on the jeans would be the right one.  Here is what we found on www.hunker.com:

How to Add Salt to Laundry to Prevent the Bleeding of Colors

Step 1

Fill a bucket or tub with 1 gallon of water. Add 1 cup of table salt. Mix the salt and water so that the salt dissolves completely. Double the recipe if your garment is large or if you’re washing more than one item.

Step 2

Submerge the clothing in the saltwater solution before the first wash. Let the clothing soak for a few hours.

Step 3

Take the clothing out of the solution and launder as usual.

Step 4

Add ¼ cup salt to the wash cycle for added protection. Do this not only during the first washing, but each washing thereafter

If you have something you don’t want to run in the wash, you can give this a try.  We didn’t continue to use salt after the first washing of the jeans, but if what you are concerned about is valuable, you may want to keep using salt each time.  Let us know how this method works for you.

It was clearly a success for Sandy and her beautiful Christmas quilt 🙂