taking all the fabric off the bolt

Try pressing 10m of 90" wide freshly boiled and dried cotton and then getting THAT back on the roll... I gave up and folded it! ;)

has anyone ever done this?

Yes, and am here to tell you won't do it again EVER. In fact got so fed up after only half way through actually PAID to have the fabric (a bolt of cotton canvas that was going to pre-wash then put back onto bolt), sent to a fabric pre-washing service (yes, such things exist), to do the job.

Fabric pre-washing services put the blot/roll of fabric on one end, send the material though a tunnel type washing/drying machine for laundering/drying then rewind said material at the other end. This is how showrooms, designers, commercial sewing, etc deal with pre-shrinking/laundering large amounts of fabric.

Putting lengths of fabric onto a bolt or roller is not as easy as one thinks. Material has to be kept under the right amount of tension and guided properly otherwise after only a few meters it begins to swivel off centre and so forth.

Candide

Not to mention all the mysterious wrinkles that become pressed-in creases. Fortunately, the only thing I have a roll of at the moment is unbleached muslin, and I dealt with that by tearing off exactly one yard, washing it thoroughly -- overnight soak in soapy water etc. etc.

-- drying in the dryer, then I re-measured it and pinned a note to the bolt so that I can tear off a piece that will be the right size after it's washed. This also keeps loom-state fabric available in case I want to make something that's *supposed* to shrink.

I made a pair of pillowcases from the swatch. The muslin is a bit too coarse for the soft pillows, but not quite coarse enough to label the hard pillows.

Joy Beeson

Thank you for reminding me about pillowslips. Have two very nice bolts of vintage Irish linen of about 10 yards each for the project. Only plan to use one of my treasured bolts, the other will go into the stash for future. The way I get round to things, one or both bolts will end up being sold off as part of my estate once I'm gone. That's how they came to me in the first place! *LOL*