Community Question: Getting Color Bleeding out of a Vintage Tablecloth

Hello friends!

I was hoping one of you may be able to help Vintage Indie reader Patti M. with her vintage tablecloth cleaning question. 

image from Etsy shop extrasprinkles

Patti writes, " I was wondering if you might be able to offer some advice or suggestions to remove bleeding stains that occurred after washing a vintage tablecloth.  This tablecloth is so precious to me and my sisters that I am very upset.  My parents are both deceased. When going through "the hope chest" we discovered a beautiful silk (I think) embroidered tablecloth that we are pretty sure my father brought home from WWII . We had never seen this gorgeous piece of linen. I suspect my Mom thought it was too nice to use.

I decided we need to enjoy this piece so used it for our Thanksgiving meal .  I washed it in cold water on delicate cycle only to have the wine color from the embroidery thread turn the beige background pink.  I immediately ran it through the delicate cycle again with no detergent this time. No improvement noted on the bleeding. I hung it outside and am searching for a solution."

 

Thanks everyone, I hope we can help Patti! 

xoxo Gabreial

I should have read a little more into this, it was fabric bleeding!

Comments

[DrJulieAnn aka The Modern Retro Woman]

She isn't asking to get blood stains out. The dye from the embroidery was not colorfast and bled throughout the tablecloth during the washing (dyed the rest of the cloth).

Any further washing will continue to cause the dye to bleed since it is not colorfast.

There are dye removers but they are harsh and will remove the colors from everything, so I wouldn't recommend going down that path.

I've learned my lesson the hard way on this type of thing and just decided to embrace the new background...and never washed it in the machine again.