Wow, what a dramatic photo!  It would be enough to make a quilter swear off batiks forever.

I have also saved quilts with the hot water dawn treatment. Your fabrics sure had lots of extra dye in them. 

I always used Synthrapol. It pulls out excess dies and makes sure it doesn't redistribute :) 

I wish I had taken a photo of the blue after the 1st soak, the water and fabric were the same color, midnight blue.  I was surprised though that it only took 2 for the blue, it was so dark I was expecting it was going to take several.  There isn't any white in this quilt but I decided I wanted to keep the light colors clear and not faded to blue.  Glad I did.

I still have a piece of red i need to do the dawn treatment! Yikes on the dark, that could have caused problems!!

That's really scary, Dee!  Were these a major brand like Hoffman or Kauffman?  At their prices, we should expect much better quality.  If you had used all these colors in a quilt without pre-washing, I think they'd all bleed down to a brown, and there would be one unfortunate quilter!

Sue in IL

I'm willing to bet that those fabrics were created by some eco-friendly outfit that only uses earth-friendly methods and doesn't taint the environment with harsh chemicals.

Pardon my sarcastic attitude but I remember the days when cotton clothing did not fade with one laundering .... 

I have to remember that.  Memories of your picture should do it.  I haven't pre-soaked any of the batiks I have used. I do wash them with color catchers and luckily have had no issues.

Judy, black jeans are the worst! I took several pairs of varying ages and grayness and re-dyed them all in one washer load.  They turned out really well, but I'll have to do them all again this fall.

Sue in IL

So did all of these fabrics eventually stop bleeding?

Are all of them going to be usable in your kit?