I had an email from a cousin who was upset because she had made a pieced baby quilt, thought she should wash it before giving it to her granddaughter and when she did found that the colors ran together. She wondered if I knew how to fix it. Unfortunately, I have no suggestions. All I can say is for the rest of us to remember her heartache and check the materials we use in a pieced quilt. It is sad to put all that work into something that won't wash well. I thought most materials were color fast these days, but apparently not. Her plight reminded me of a situation that happened to a friend of mine that she turned around to have great meaning for her family. It seems she bought a new couch, brought it home and discovered one leg was shorter than the others. In frustration she reached for a book nearby and stuck it under the short leg. Being a busy mother, she didn't get around to doing something about it for some time. Then she noticed that the book she had stuck under the leg was one named "Love or Perish". So instead of treating the unfortunate situation of buying a defective couch as a small tragedy, she drew her family's attention to the book under the leg and told them it was going to be their family's theme. It was where the family sat most the time to watch TV and was where they often needed to be reminded about the importance of getting along. In later years, the children all remembered this reminder. I couldn't think of a meaning to use with the quilt with the color smeared blocks, but the granddaughter could learn a good lesson about how a grandmother's feelings are more important than a perfect quilt. If she expressed her thanks and used the quilt anyway, it would go a long ways to making this become a remembered episode in their lives. Hummm, maybe she could use the run-together colors as a symbol of how a family needs to share, to blend together and make the best of what they all have collectively.Some of us are better at making lemonade out of sour lemons than others. It makes cents and sense to learn to see uses and meaning in whatever life hands us.