When I washed my fabric I noticed some of it unraveled a little and became a tangled mess. Some of the pieces were small, only an eight of a yard. Do you think it would help to put each separate piece into a lingerie bag? Would this help them from wrapping around each other and making a big knotted mess? Thanks.

I bought about 20 different 1/4 yard cuts of fabric recently and proceded to serge or zig-zag the cut sides. I then washed all the fabric and yes I had a tangled mess even after doing it in the hand wash mode. I just untangled, machine dried and ironed. You might try the bag method or just hand wash each piece. I have had large pieces tangle including my bed sheets. :?

thanks for all the tips.

I think that sounds like a great idea.

After years of trying different ways to wash, I finally do this every time: I let the washer fill to the right level, then stop it and agitate by hand. Then I let it spin, and fill again to rinse--but agitate by hand again. Then spin. No unraveling. :D

anything smaller than a fat quarter goes into the dishpan in the sink for washing.
I can't fill my washer and hand agitate it....I have a front loader

anything little i wash in liquid dishwash fluid and rinse carefully. then i put it in a pot and bring to a boil. then i let it cool. whatever shrinkage is going to happen, happens. to tell the truth, i hardly ever buy anything smaller than 1/4 because of the shrinkage.

anything over 1/4 i sew the cut edges together with a zigzag stitch and wash on delicate-hot. then i dry on regular. the cut edges seem to keep each other from fraying.

I sometimes wash my smaller pieces in the sink with hot water. Then I lay them on a thick bath towel and roll them to get the water out. I let them sit out to dry or I iron the moisture out. Works well for me.

I use mesh bags I get at the dollar store.

I used the mesh bags when I washed a jelly roll and I still had a tangled mess. I just got a new front loader washing machine and have notice that I have less raveling and tangled up messes than I did with my top loader.

I don't prewash fabrics, but someone elsewhere on the forum posted a tip several days ago. She basically flat folds her yardage and pins the folds together at both the selvedge end and the fold end before putting them into the washing machine. I imagine this would work for jelly rolls and fat quarters too to prevent tangling. It seems to me you would need fairly large and sharp safety pins to do this.

You could also probably just machine tack the pieces together (move from one tack to the next and afterwards cut the threads connecting the tacks). Or maybe just use an ultra-long basting stitch on the machine; I know mine has one that is about 2 inches long. It would be really easy to pull the basting stitches out afterwards.

that sounds like a good idea. if you put the cut edge inside the fold and either sewed or pinned, then the raw edge would be protected from unraveling. but you can't do that with little pieces.

what if you used a little pillowcase that you kept for small pieces? why does it have to be mesh? i've done that with very delicate sweaters to prevent twisting inside the mesh. the water and detergent still go in and out.