Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Aggravation...

I finished sewing the binding on my quilt yesterday. I put it in the washing machine with no detergent to get out the blue wash away marks and the silver marks (made by the general's silver quilting pencil) and the white marks (made by the general's white quilting pencil).

IT STILL HAD THE WHITE AND SILVER MARKS IN IT!

I calmly put it back in the washer with a special soap called Quilt care made for quilts and fine washables.

IT STILL HAD THE WHITE AND SILVER MARKS IN IT!

I could have cried. This has never happened to me before. I have used these pencils before. They have always come out.
I tried a recipe my friend said removes pencil marks, the Magic Elixir.
They were still in there.

I was beginning to get very discouraged. This quilt is to be in a Quilt Show at the end of this month and I put a lot of work into it. I figured I had nothing to lose.
I took out this spot remover that my sister had just recently let me know about. It is called M30. It is found at the Dollar Tree stores and Dollar General. It says it removes any stain. I had used it before on set in stains in shirts and it had removed them but I was leary about putting this strong chemical on my quilt.
The marks were all over and it would take me a while. The product is petroleum based and that made me nervous but it had worked well in the past with the shirts. I went for it!
I covered every mark in that quilt. It took me about 1-1/2 hrs. I let it set for 4 hrs. Then washed it with my regular detergent (this is what I usually do with every quilt I finish). It took out most of the marks. Yeah!
There are three blocks at the top of the quilt that still have some very light markings. It is drying, laid out on my table right now and I may apply some more stain remover just to those spots later today. I have my mini group to go to today so I can't mess with it til it is dry. I want so badly to put it in the dryer. I love the way a quilt feels when it is fresh out of the dryer, so soft and puffy. I will have to wait until the marks are all gone before I can do that. Here is a close up picture of a section with the pencil marks. They are very light. I don't know if you can even see them in the picture. The next picture is of the quilt laid out on my table drying.





Quilt til your arm falls off...

2 comments:

Little Penpen said...

I just found your blog and have enjoyed going through your posts. Your quilt is beautiful! I hope you can get the ink out to your satisfaction... that must be so heartbreaking!

Finn said...

Hi Terry, I was close to tears reading your post this morning! What a nightmare, especially when you haven't had a problem with those pencils before. Maybe this fabric was more poreous or something. Whatever it was, it's hard to think about using them again!!
So glad something worked..*VBS* The quilt is beautiful and all the work is already done. But as they say, all's well that ends well and here's hoping for a very happy ending!! Hugs, Finn
Love the gardenia picture and your Saturday morning tea picture..lovely!
Yes, we do need to appreciate those little tiny parts of life that slip past us so rapidly! Keep quilting! Hugs, Finn