Originally Posted by beebs
Washed and ironed every piece of fabric I own, do you think they will still be okay to use? Or have I stretched them? Please tell me I haven't wrecked them - I have 5 years worth :( I was having nightmares about it last night!!
You're probably okay; the difference is most important with smaller pieces of fabric (like patches) and with bias or off grain edges.
If you're really worried, take an average piece of fabric from your stash. Draw around it on a sheet of paper. Then let it rest in a nice lukewarm bath for a while, take it out and let it dry. When it is dry, *PRESS* it.
Then lay it down in the original outline and see if it has changed in any significant way. If it hasn't, then you are probably fine. If it has changed significantly, well, then you will have some decisions to make.
Not all distortion is a disaster. If you rarely to never use bias cuts, if you tend to quilt fairly closely, if most of your fabrics don't have strong vertical or horizontal lines (stripes, plaids, border prints), then some distortion won't make one bit of difference.
If you do have lots of stripes, plaids and border prints that look wiggly when they shouldn't, if you like to do a lot with triangles and/or off grain cuts, if you don't quilt fairly closely, then it might be worth it to wet and press your fabrics. Might be easier to do if you do it by project rather than tackling your whole stash at once.