Originally Posted by Butterfli19
First I must say I was very anxious about doing this and should probably have done it with uglier fabric, but the deed is done.
Not impressed.
My straight line is crooked and wavy so now I have to cut more off to make it lay straight. It curles in about 1/2" so that's about 3" I just wasted. I didn't prewash. The selvedge lines up with the other side but not the side I ripped.
Now that this has totally left me shaking my head, I'm going for even more controversial techniques. I'm going to cut my 2-7/8" in strip before ironing, just hand-pressing the wrinkles away. I'm then going to starch the strip with Niagara that I just bought. I'm not going to pre-wash. Just going to cut and sew and press as I go.
I'll let you know how it goes.
The three inches you lost was an indication of how wonky the peice was cut wrong off the bolt, others are right, buy enough to square up the peice. Your end product will lay flat and be beautiful. When I have a new peice of fabric I prewash, then I clip a vertical snip and rip both the selvage edges, then I rip WOF and yes often times its one to two inches deep. Sometimes I dont snip enough and have to go back, the WOF will wave when you do this...just touch it with the iron and cut WOF striips to your hearts content...they will all be straight as an arrow. Then throw it in the drawer and come back two years later and just continue on...you know its already straight.
Point is....you only need to rip WOF once. As long as you continue on that line you are set.