Ever took a fly off and put it back into your box only to find out that its dye leached out onto the rest of your bugs. . . . . . Nightmare.

I often buy my feathers by the pound to try and cut costs down. Last year I purchased 2 1/2lb of ostrich feathers.  Pink and Blue.  The feathers showed up and upon inspection seemed good. They weren't all beauty, and there were some that didn't match my purpose for them, but on the whole, there was enough good that I was pleased.  With some of the blue ones, I tied a custom order for a client, 6doz of one steelhead pattern.  I had a few rejects that I was going to fish.  These rejects are fine there's just something not quite right about them that I don't want them to be sold, often a missing material and most often its a flash.

After fishing one of them, I noticed some dye leaching.  I inspected further with others and found it was. I deemed it unacceptable, and I immediately called the customer and asked him to send the flies back to me.  I took some of the feathers and put them in a mesh bag and left them in my neighbour's creek for a few days to see if it was maybe just some residual on them.  They leached and leached.  Its funny tho as the pink ones are fine.  

I contacted the company I purchased them from (not a fly tying supplier), and they responded

"Dear Aaron,

I am truly sorry you are not happy with the feathers you received. Sadly, colorfastness does not exist in the feather world. Dark colours like Blue, Purple, Turquoise, and Black will always bleed to some degree.  If our dyers were to rinse the feathers after the dyeing process to the point where there is no runoff, the colours would appear faded and be completely useless to all of our customers.", To be honest it was my own stupid fault for not checking the colorfastness of the feathers before using them.

I'm sorry Mr. feather guy, but you are wrong.  I believe there is SOME truth within his statements and I realize some colours are difficult to eliminate 100% of all bleeding, but there was something terribly wrong with this dye job.

They never did sort me out, and I hesitate to do business with them again. I think from now on,  If I were to buy it would only be only un-dyed materials from them.

So now I've got $150 worth of blue ostrich that I kinda need, that I don't want to throw away, but it's totally useless in its current state.  What do you do?. . . . Well, i decided to throw some more money at it.  I go and buy some pots, rubber gloves, gallons of vinegar, wooden spoons, strainers, tinfoil turkey pans, tongs and I go to work.  Apparently, vinegar is used to "set" the dye in some types of dye.  It would appear that the type of Dye used on these blue bastards. . . .  is not of this type. I boiled, I stirred, I rinsed. They just will not stop bleeding nor do they really "Fade."

I'm just about finished with these feathers.  Does anyone have any suggestions.