Oops!

An update post on my quilt is finally here...unfortunately, it's not going to be quite the post I wanted it to be!

A couple of weeks ago, I completed cutting out all the muslin background squares and was ready to begin pinning and fusing my red fabric arcs onto them. Everything went along dandily, and in a few days I'd completed ten squares.

Unfortunately, while fusing the arcs to that tenth square, I realized a horrible truth: the pen I used to mark the arcs, and that I naively believed was permanent, most certainly was NOT. A little bit of water that spit from the iron must have come in contact with the ink, because immediately a pink stain spread across my muslin. Aack!

Last week, several days were filled with trying to figure out what to do. To try to prevent the problem with future blocks, I had to wash out all my remaining arcs. Since I still need to use the fusible interfacing, I didn't want to ruin that. Google helped me find out that it's fine to prewash interfacing in warm water, so that's what I decided to do. The instant the arcs got wet, the water turned a nice bright pink. After rinsing and rinsing, it finally ran basically clear.

They then had to hang dry. I had to round up as many clothespins as I could find and pin bunches of arcs to hangers. Then they went outside on a rack to dry in the fresh breeze. So now I have lots of ink-free arcs to work with, but there are still those 10 completed squares that have ink just waiting to stain the muslin the moment they get wet.  

Scraps of my muslin and interfacing came in handy for testing purposes, and after purposefully staining some pieces, I tried to remove it with alcohol. I've read about alcohol, hair spray, and hydrogen peroxide being options for removing ink stains, but I didn't seem to have any success with the pink muslin scraps.

One thing that I read while researching ink stains was that OxyClean is supposed to be good at removing them. Mom bought me some, and I still have to give it a try. Hopefully this will work, or else I'll have to settle for my quilt being partly pink. Anybody have any other suggestions?

~Sarah

Comments

[Ginny]

Oh, big fat hairy bummer!
I HATE when that happens!
I think the Oxy-clean is pretty much your last hope. It should work, though. Use the hottest water you can and let it soak for about 24 hours. It might fade the colors a little, but not much. I hope it works.
:-\

[Dorothy]

This week I used hairspray to get ink out of a white and pink jacket of Sarah's. She sprayed on the hairspray. We let it sit there a day, then I scrubbed it a little with an old toothbrush and washed it in cold water. It almost all came out. I hung it up to dry and will do the same routine again when it needs another washing. Did you try hairspray yet? I hope you can figure it out after all the work you did! :)

[Kathie]

Oh how I feel your pain! Quilting is such an investment of time, so we really feel it when we goof.

I only have two suggestions. Either borax or one of those new laundry sheets that "grab stains and enhance colors." I saw a box of them in the amish bent and dent store yesterday.

Let us know how it turns out.

[Mommy of two little blessings]

Dear Sarah,
Sorry to hear of your marking issue. Unfortuantely I don't have any advise. I generally use a pencil so it washes out in the wash. Sorry about the marking mishap and I hope you get it figured out because the block looks beautiful!
Blessings, -me- (Mommy of two little blessings)

[Jane]

Sarah, you might want to try Goo Gone. We've used it for lots of things and I checked on a search it is recommended for removing ink. It is a Citrus based product. Hope this helps.

[Sarah]

I've removed some tough stains with the Oxy-Clean. Give it a try. Hope it works for you. And I'm looking forward to seeing the completed quilt even if it has pink stains. (:

[Sherrin Drew]

Oh dear! It must be so frustrating to have this happen when you've done so much work. I guess you could view it like the Mennonites do: a sign of your fallability! Someone did point out to me once that their mistakes are deliberate though :).

I often comfort myself with the truth that others are often less likely to notice mistakes than the maker is!

[Sarah]

Thanks everybody for the encouragement and the suggestions!

I shall make sure to post an update after I've worked with it a little bit more. :)

[Alli]

Oh Sarah! That's terrible! I'm so sorry to hear about your quilt and what happened. I hope you were able to figure out a way to fix it.

I have tagged you and Hannah over on my blog. :) I can't wait to see you all on Saturday! I'm so glad you're going to be able to come!

[Linda in Washington State]

Sarah,

Someone once told me that if you make a mistake, make it big. That way people might not think it was a mistake at all and that you really meant to do it!

I don't think that advice works for everything. But if all else fails and you can't get the stain out, maybe you ought to stain the rest of the muslin and make it look deliberate. It'll make your quilt look like a one-of-a-kind. People will love it.

Linda