Help! My Santas are bleeding!

Indeed, the Santas I embroidered in red perle cotton on muslin have bled all over the muslin!

I'm so disappointed--no, crushed is the better way to describe how I feel.  I spent many hours over the past month stitching these little guys--had the border fabrics picked out and everything--and now it's useless.  I followed the directions in the pattern to wash it in sudsy water--I used tepid or room temp water--with a splash of white vinegar to set the color.  Didn't happen!  I could see the water turning pink as I gently swished it around.  After drying and pressing, the red is still on the muslin and the whole thing is ruined.  Crushed, just crushed.

I just asked Prof. Google if there's anything I can do to rescue my poor bleeding Santas and she says I can soak the item in a solution of powder bleach and water for 8 hours. I have nothing to lose so I'll give this a try today and see what happens.  I may end up with all white Santas!  That would be different, eh?  I'll let you know how it turns out.

Yesterday afternoon, after I finished my work on the back yard flower beds, I began quilting up this Halloween banner I'd been putting off. It's just a printed panel so all I have to do is quilt, bind and attach a hanging sleeve. Simple, right?

I'd pinned it a week or more ago but for some reason didn't have the mojo to begin the quilting.  I know that Halloween is coming up quickly so I want to get this done and in the Jolly Ruby shop as soon as possible so it can be sold before the holiday.  This is what I did yesterday

and this is what I have left to do today, I hope.

Here are a couple of closeups for you.  I outlined the pumpkin and cat as well as the flying geese.  Then I did a row of spirals below the pumpkin and meandered all the rest of the center of the panel.

I thought for Halloween, I should try to make it a bit scarey so I wrote a couple of "Boo"s in the meandering for fun.

Then I outlined the "sing a song of Halloween" on the bottom and meandered all the rest of the bottom.

While I was quilting up this piece, I decided to try a new method of hiding the thread ends. I'd seen this video on Barbara's  Cat Patches blog and I'm including a link to the video for you to check out as well.  https://youtu.be/M3gl4K8Z7XM.  What a great technique!  Instead of threading the needle with each set of threads that need to be buried--and you know that in a large quilt that can add up to many, many times!--all I needed to do was keep one needle threaded with the loop and use that repeatedly to bury the threads!  You have to watch the video to see how it works. I'm not going to even try to describe it.  Trust me that it's a great time saver and as easy as can be.

That's it for today. Have to find the Oxiclean and soak the Santas.  We'll see if Oxiclean lives up to it's advertisements!