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Dyeing an afghan - the colors ran


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Hello!  I recently inherited an afghan that my grandmother crocheted.  It needed to be cleaned so I bought some gentle soap at a local yarn shop, but really made a mess of it.  The maroon color ran terribly onto the gray.  Is there anyone out there that dyes afghans?  It is a desperate last measure, but perhaps it would make it presentable again.  I am afraid to try myself as I know absolutely nothing about yarn or dye.  I had the suggestion that possibly an all-over dye of the maroon would help it.  Any help anyone could give would be greatly appreciated! Thank you. 

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I bet (at least the maroon part) is made from cotton yarn - I use mercerized cotton thread to make doilies, and occasionally 'kitchen cotton' for potholders and such and red shades pretty much always run a little bit (never seen it with other colors, maybe I've just been lucky).  It shouldn't happen with acrylic--the manufacturing process melts the color into a vat of molten plastic, which is extruded into yarn fiber, it is not dyed after the fact like wool or cotton (it wouldn't stick).

I don't think overdying will help, if the afghan is all cotton or natural fiber it will just turn it varying shades of murky maroon, and then if you wash it with a load of other things at a later date, the overdye might bleed on the other things.  

What shouldn't hurt, but but might help - I've never used one*, but there are dye-catching products that you can buy that are supposed to collect 'loose dye' in the water. Try running the blanket in the washer as a small load by itself with the product following the instructions and see what happens.  

*my dye-running problems are faint pink smudges on a stitch or 2 typically, I never bothered.

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