That Longtime UFO

Last week, I told you that I finished a longtime UFO.  I started it in, when?  1999?  I think that's when we had that Valley Oak Quilt Guild challenge, involving several fabrics.  I believe we were to use 3 and could add three.  I believe I added the muslin in the blocks, then set them aside.  I missed the finish deadline by a mile.  I don't think I have any pictures of the blocks before they were set into the top.

Fast forward to 2004, when I finished my sister's "30th Birthday Quilt."  (I promised each sibling a quilt when they either got married or turned 30.  All of the quilts were late, which probably goes without saying.)  Anyway, this was the quilt I made for sister #2.  She's a knitter and had a cat, which is why they are included.

Other than the Rose of Sharon blocks, the entire quilt was "original."  When I laid it on the floor, and looked at it from an angle, I LOVED the inner setting.  It was perfect for those leftover blocks from that challenge.
Here was the quilt, back in 2009.

I put shadow trapunto in some of the setting triangles, and quilted feathers in the gold.  The green triangles eventually ended up with feather quilting as well.  Then I decided to trapunto the gold feathers.  oh my.  As you can note by this year's year, it took SEVEN years for me to complete the trapunto.  I did it the old-fashioned way, with acrylic yarn and a 6" needle.  Look at the ripples around the finished edge.  Oh no!!

The last thing to do to finish this beauty was to wash it and see if I could get the ripples to reduce or disappear completely.  What I wasn't expecting was for the red to run.  groan.

oh. my. goodness.  What to do?

Vicki Welsh has a tutorial on her website for anyone with this problem.  You can find it here.  I wrote to her asking if it would help with dye migration as well as an all-out bleed.  She thought it would.  hmmm.  I had the Kirkland's Free & Clear, which I used, but it didn't take out all the pink.  I went to the store and bought Dawn, not realizing that I needed Dawn Pure.  They didn't have that at Savemart.  *sigh*

After 48 hours of soaking, with two different detergents, this is what the blocks look like.

It's a definite improvement, but the back of the flowers are still pink.  Here is what the quilt looks like at this very minute:

The quilt is pinned into place and drying in today's expected 100 degrees.  Tomorrow, I will unveil the final result.  Thanks for checking in!