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Pay Attention, important, bleeding thread

Now I know that most of you think of me as just a pretty face if you think of me at all . . . or you might have noticed my sense of humor even when it's totally uncalled for. Just this once, I'm serious so pay attention. Nice neighbor made a sweet little ruffled dress for baby shower this coming Saturday. Decided she would run a row of tiny bright pink hearts across the yoke. Wrong, wrong, wrong, Wrong, w-r-o-n-g. She gently hand washed the little dress to remove the water soluble marks she'd needed and, of course, to hopefully remove bad-for-baby fabric finishes. The thread she used to fancy machine stitch the string of tiny hearts: a Belding-Lily 100% cotton, bled and ran just all over that little dress. There are just a few Belding-Lily spools here but I could have picked up one to use if I'd needed that color. I took one of mine, soaked it quite sopping and put it on a white dish towel. Nothing. I took her spool and did the same. It ran dye like just nothing you've ever seen. Tomorrow is house-cleaning day and I won't be quilting. I'm thinking I just might line up some white towels, wet my cotton thread spools and see if there are any free-bleeders here. Just imagine what a heart-breaker it would be to have that happen to a masterpiece! (Not that there are any of those around here.) Polly

Reply to
Polly Esther
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Oh No! I had a green fabric that I used on a quilt binding that did that forever. Gave the quilt to DB and SIL with a box of color catchers and told them to never wash the quilt without them! Granted, I think the quilt is in their attic somewhere. Oh well. But I do have the family Christening gown that I (foolishly) volunteered to embroider all the children's names/dates. I was planning to do an ecru-ish color thread so not so much worry, but still. Now if I could only figure out how to get the info I need transferred to the fabric to actually DO the embroidery!

And Polly - if you get bored cleaning your house, you could always come here to do some more. DH would certainly appreciate the effort.

Kim in NJ

Reply to
AuntK

Polly that's just plain horrible to contemplate. I have never heard of that kind of thread -- now of course I'll go looking for it. But it makes me squirm to think about the places I've used cotton thread in various colors ... no heirlooms around here either, but what a horror to watch your work slowly bleed to death. Thanks for the warning.

Sunny suspiciously eyeing a box of gorgeous (but anonymous) cotton thread

Reply to
Sunny

On Thu, 17 Feb 2011 19:24:39 -0600, Polly Esther wrote (in article ):

Ouch! Your friend must be sick about the little dress!

Maureen

Reply to
Maureen Wozniak

Reply to
Roberta

How very sad! I hope she can get it out somehow! I also hope she contacts the thread company and raises bloody hell about it!

Thread dyes running is one of my nightmares, particularly since I enjoy doing wholecloth quilting using brightly colored threads on white fabric. So, I always make a small sample piece -- a block that might wind up as part of a pillow -- and then check out the issue of dyes. (It's also handy to make sure that the particular color looks good when actually used in wholecloth work -- they always seem to look different from what is expected! Also, different colors in the same brand and weight of thread will handle differently.)

Samples are my friend, and I turned a couple of bits that did run into a small pillow for the cat -- she doesn't mind a bit!

Reply to
Mary

Oh, wow, that is just heartbreaking to put so much time into a dress and have it ruined. I think I would just drop to the floor and cry...!

-Irene

Reply to
IMS

How awful. Being the whiner that I am, I,d be tempted to send a photo and a nice Fyi note to the thread manufacturer. Just because maybe something went terribly wrong with quality control on that batch.

Sherry

Reply to
Sherry

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