In my head I originally called this quilt Pink Quilt. I don't name my quilts per se but I do refer to them as someone sometimes. Do you recall that I had it machine quilted by someone with a long arm and it turned out to be a BIG mistake because it was quilted so horribly? Sure you do, the photos where ghastly.
I spent some time with a pile of safety pins and marked the places that were the absolute worst of the machine quilting and ripped those sections out, restitched them by hand all the time realizing the thing was going to look like a hodge podge of quilting, then handed it to PH to wash in hot water and put in the dryer to see if the machine stitching I left in would tighten up a bit, saving me from having to rip the entire quilt apart. This is how it came out of the dryer. I thought, "well, ok, it's a utility quilt and so just ok."
I really loved that the back made the quilt reversible and gave a reason for this panel print to live.
Here are the pieces with better lighting. The white background was nice.
And this is how it came out of the dryer. When PH handed it to me and I turned it over I could not believe what I saw. Those squares are, as you can see, quite pink. I didn't believe what I was seeing.
BUT the big mystery - look at that white border!
NO pink bled onto that white border. None. Not a teensy smidge of a bleed. AND it didn't turn any of the lighter colors on the front pink! I do not understand at all but I thought actually it didn't ruin an already ruined quilt, as long as the pink bleed behaved and stayed within the white border you could make the argument it was supposed to be this way, that the panel was originally this color AND I was
ever so eternally grateful I didn't cut and use these squares into something really special only to have THAT ruined. This Pink Quilt has lived up to its name.
Oh My! What an experience. I just had a similar experience. I recently finished a quilt and carefully washed it with color catchers and blue Dawn dish detergent in cold water. I found out, about half way into hand quilting this quilt that one of the fabric I used frequently in the blocks was a bleeder. I had used white background prints but I only used the 'little red hen" fabric on one. The rest of the whites are crisp and bright white but this little block was quite "PINK" like your quilt. I was going to give this quilt away as a Christmas gift but now it's going to stay here as a camp or picnic quilt - sigh
ReplyDeleteI remember your post about your disappointment over the quilting. I'm so glad you rescued it. The pretty back is just as pretty in pink as it was in white.
ReplyDeleteWe all have one of 'those' projects now and then. This is yours.
I still love it, if you can't bear to look at it, send it to me. LOL
That is weird that the dyes only ran into the blocks not the border or any of the other side?
ReplyDeleteI think the quilt still looks alright even in pink….
What a strange thing to happen, still looks good though, it has been a difficult quilt hasn't it!
ReplyDeleteOMG that quilt Saga continues...... So sad..... But so weird that it was very selective where the colours bleed.... So really it could like like they actually had pink background......
ReplyDeleteGreat that the white stayed white, some quilts just seem to have issues, don't they
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