Chicken and the Egg

Which comes first? Washing the newly purchased fabric, or piecing the quilt top?

 

For years I would pre-wash, after surging or straight stitching (or zig-zag) the cut edges to keep down the raveled tangled mess washing would cause. I wanted what would shrink, to shrink. I wanted to set the colors if anything was inclined to bleed or stain other fabric.

Then came along all the pre-cut masses I wrote about yesterday. There is no way on this God’s green earth anyone would pre-wash those individually cut pieces! Can you imagine the tangled mess they would cause! Not fun even thinking about it.

In my opinion, what’s good for the goose (pre-cuts) is good for the gander (yardage)!

(The exception: I will pre-wash whenever I buy Batiks by-the-yard. I've found, even with the precautions I write about below, they still have a tendency to bleed.)

CRITICAL NOTE: When the quilt is totally quilted and binding and label applied, I will use a couple of products I’ve found amazingly worthwhile in doing the trick of setting the colors in their proper place:

I always machine wash my finished quilts using a gentle cycle with COLD water, and:

toss in a couple of Shout “Color Catchers” – 

 I also mix ¼ cup of Dharma’s Professional Textile Detergent in the wash, along with the normal detergent.

So far, I’ve been blessed they have worked beautifully keeping all the colors in their place, except on one occasion when Batiks were involved!

I recently saw on Pinterest, pinned from the 42 Quilts website, a little known fact concerning Dawn Ultra Dishwashing Soap! She says a tablespoon worth in the washer also works as a fabric setting agent! I haven’t yet tried it, but will soon!

Do you pre-wash?