Laundering fabric

I launder 99% of the fabrics I bring home. I have a tendency to make purchases for my stash rather than a specific project so they go to the laundry room before the sewing room. That way I know that the fabric is ready to sew when I begin a project. I do it for the reasons you listed.

I always wash my fabrics before use, for the reasons you stated.

-Irene

-------------- You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.=20

--Mae West=20

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I wash nearly every piece of fabric that comes into the sewing room. (Sometimes I don't wash the PolarFleece I get from MaldenMills. I know what it's going to do in the wash, and it's not dusty.) I've had crisp fabrics soften up, I've had prints twist, I've had fabric shrink

jenn

-- Jenn Ridley : snipped-for-privacy@chartermi.net

Me too! Another Barbara in SC

All of the above. It doesn't make sense to invest time and energy in sewing something that will give you a nasty surprise first time it's washed.

Doreen in Alabama

It is heartbreaking to spend your money making something only to discover one of the following:

- The fabric does not launder well.

- The fabric wrinkles VERY well and is practically impossible to render wrinkle-free

- The fabric shrinks a little after each washing until it is 10-20% smaller than it was before washing.

- The fabric colors fade/leach dye/etc after each washing

BTDT > How many of you launder their washable fabrics before cutting out their > projects?

I *always* do. Any washable fabric I am going to spend a lot of my precious time and effort on will be laundered *before* I even think about using it. Learned the hard way a loooong time ago...

If it's going into the stash, I attach a note with width/yardage/fabric-content/etc details, so I'll know five-years-from-now. ;-)

Beverly

I do this as well, except I tend to serge the raw edges to prevent raveling. Emily

It looks like 100%. Yes, wash everything before beginning. I've made the mistake of not doing that, putting in hours of work, only to get a rag out of the wash. It did not make me a happy person. Not gonna do that again.

Always. I once made a stained glass quilt without washing, and the fabric turned out to be so stiff that it kept splitting along the black bias tape. I'd try to mend it, then it would create a new split.

I will never work with unwashed fabric again.

-- Anita --

Depends. I buy a lot of my basics 25-100 yards at a time. I'll wash a yard, calculate the % shrinkage, and write it on the roll. It's a lot easier to adjust a pattern for shrinkage (which in my experiences with these fabrics has been very small) than it is to launder and press long yardages. The last cotton twill I bought, for instance, had about a 1% lengthwise and a 0.5% crosswise shrinkage.

Kay

I launder every fabric I intend to launder after it's been made up.

Yes, but you do "test" first, and shrinkage is not the *only* problem one might encounter. I did buy 48 yards of black polyester moiré taffeta for skirts for the girls in a high school singing group once. They insisted they wanted to be able to wash the skirts, so I trundled the yardage up to the local coin-launderette, washed and dried it, and pressed it before I cut and assembled. It was worth the expense and trouble, the girls loved those skirts. Made red taffeta cummerbunds for each girl, too, and red bow ties for the guys to wear with their tuxedos. (School colors were red/black/white)

Beverly

Any new fabric that comes into the house lives in the laundry room until it's been washed.

Well, it *does* make a brief trip to the sewing room: I nearly always zig-zag the raw edges first. I've been known to hand-baste a french seam instead, and some fabrics don't need any ravel-prevention..

There are two rolls of fabric that has never been washed on the shelf

-- but I figure I'm not likely to forget and use either one without washing. I do use some of the unbleached muslin straight off the roll

-- it goes through the printer better before the sizing is washed out, and the little bags will be just as useful after they change shape, not to mention that they will probably get lost before they get dirty. I have a note pinned to the unbleached muslin stating exactly how much length and how much width it will lose, so I know how much to tear off the roll for a project.

When a fabric is solid colored, I soak it overnight to loosen the sizing before I wash it. Heavy fabric may need to be washed more than once.

Joy Beeson

What a great idea, thanks Joy!

" snipped-for-privacy@aol.com" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com:

I absolutely wash fabrics that are washable. I press them too. Makes my life a lot easier later on - cutting, potential shrinkage, etc.

If it is a small piece of fabric---maybe a yd or less---I just wash it in the bathroom sink. Barbara in SC and now FL