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My hubby and I went on vacation this past weekend and brought home an opened bottle of wine in our suitcase. Unfortunately it leaked into the suitcase on the drive home!! Thankfully it only got on one of his t-shirts and even though my sewing bag was soaked on the outside, it only got on my patterns and floss! Not on a project I've been working on for 6 months for a friend's new baby!!! But now my floss smells like alcohol! How should I wash it? I don't want to throw it all in together in case it bleeds. I know some of you wash/rinse your floss prior to using it to prevent bleeding after but I've never done that. How do you do it?

What a nightmare, although as you say it could've been worse.

What brand of floss is it? If cotton DMC or Anchor you shouldn't have any problem washing it up to 40 degrees. I'd be tempted to wash like colours together to be on the extra-safe side.

If they're silk or variegated you'll probably need to stick to a cold rinse keeping colours separate.

Fingers crossed!

Well, now that it's dried, the smell seems to have gone away. I think I'm still going to rinse them, just in case, but at least I don't have to worry about it too much. Nothing was stained (well, none of the floss, my sewing bag and the t-shirt were) and it seems like the smell is gone. It's not technically DMC or Anchor, they say they make their floss specifically for their patterns but it's not silk or varietaged so I'll treat it the way you gave to do DMC or Anchor.

Luckily the alcohol will have evaporated, but the volatile elements will remain behind. Washing in cold water will do the trick, separating lights from darks, of course.

What a nightmare! (Next time, drink the whole bottle!! )

Wash in salt water. The salt absorbs the alcohol.

When I was stitching the favors for my sisters bridal shower I spilled pop all over them so I soaked them in oxy clean and let it sit and then after a bit when the stains went away i rinsed them all out and it didnt do anything to the color of the floss on the ones that was already stitched. They were on white fabric and the colors were 336 dk blue and i think 762 pale gray and they didnt even bleed anywhere.

hmmm, well now you fixd the problem that is good but remember you can also wsh the finished piece in nice smeeling wool wash, that is what I use.

then, you can get really drunk and you wont notice any stains ect.