I've had a lot of comment from people who also suffer from the chemicals in new fabric. Lisa suggested a room air filter, Nancy suggested a fan and also said you have to wash fabric with hot water and detergent, not just soak it. Nellie and Catherine said why iron it? Fold it and wait until
you need it before ironing it because you need to iron before you cut it anyway. So I've bought an air purifier for the sewing room which I am also using in the office for seed counting days. That should help lessen that allergy reaction too. And I've started washing all my fabric. I did a big batch of RED fabric this morning and used two dye catchers. Here they are after the wash. (For the people who don't know about dye catchers, these started out white!) There is no colour run on the fabric at all. I've got a load of purple fabric in now with another two dye catchers.
BUT I've only got 3 more left after that. Does anyone know where I can get more in New Zealand? I've only ever seen them in Countdown twice and that was once on the shelf and then again later in the remainder bin. I guess they didn't sell very well. I bought all i could at that point but I haven't seen them since and I've nearly used up all I have. This is what the box looks like - have you seen any around?
Tomorrow is the Quilt Show! But before I can go and see who has won the challenges, I have some visitors coming to see the SwiftQuilter in action. And I had no quilt to load up to show them so I made a quickie top today. And as I have only washed my red, orange and yellow fabric, I had to make a red orange and yellow quilt. I think it looks like a boy's quilt, don't you? I wonder which little boy I can give it to when its finished. It took a couple of hours from pulling the fabric to finishing the border (well, I had to iron all the fabric I used) but I'm very happy to report that I only had a very mild allergic reaction to my sewing room today. Using washed fabric and having most of the (unwashed) fabric now shut away in bins and the cupboard AND my filter working away in the corner has made the sewing room a much more pleasant place to be. Of course, its all tidy and dusted at the moment because of the visitors coming so that will help too.
And look what I've got in my laundry - 24 boxes of dye catchers! My daughter Sarah found a bulk source of them for me and they arrived in the mail yesterday. So I'm working my way through washing all the fabric, pile by pile. I'm about 1/5 of the way through now. The cute wee squash sitting on top were in my organic fruit & vege box a couple of weeks ago. I love getting the box each week and seeing what surprises I have!
