I know there is a lot of chatter in quilting circles about prewashing quilt fabric. Whether you should take the time to prewash or not. In fact, I already wrote an article on that subject. Check it out here to read if you are interested.

This article is about how to save your dark coloured fabrics from bleeding. In particular I am referring to dark purple, dark blue and red fabrics. And, you can almost always depend on your beautiful batik fabrics bleeding too. Let me show you how to save your fabric from bleeding.

Retayne can be purchased in quilt stores, some fabric stores and on Amazon.

Retayne is a chemical that is added to a very hot water bath with your fabric. Your fabric soaks for 5 minutes and then you wash and dry like normal.

Retayne is a colour fixative which acts to fix the colour in the fabric. Once you use Retayne on your fabric you will not experience bleeding.

Last month I needed to wash some red fabrics that I was using in a project. Since I knew that the red would likely run, I used Retayne on them.

Here is a photo of the water left over after applying Retayne to the fabrics. Do you see why I use this product on all red, dark blue and dark purple fabrics?

Colour Catchers

Colour Catchers are similar to dryer sheets that you put in your washer with your load of fabric. Some argue that they work just as well as using Retayne. In my opinion they don’t. 

I used them 10 times in a row with red fabric and it just continued to bleed colour. I wasted a lot of water to find out that the colour would continue to leach out of the fabric. It is so much easier and far more cost effective to use Retayne instead.

My Final Thoughts

In my opinion, and I have been doing this for 21 years so I know a thing or two (not that I’m saying I’m an expert), the only way to stop bleeding from red, dark blue and dark purple fabrics is to fix the colour using Retayne.

Retayne is widely available and should be a part of every quilter’s supplies.

I hope this has helped you understand that dark fabrics often bleed and how to stop it from happening.

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I hope you have found this helpful. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to email me here.

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