Funny...had this discussion last week with a woman at quilt guild who'd just finished a flannel rag quilt and another who had owned commercial laundromats. The one with the laundromat background said never to wash them (the first time) in a home machine because of the amount of linty stuff that will go into the drain...apparently can clog it up bigtime. She said many laundromats with attendants will not allow you to use their machines with new rag quilts because of the drain clogging issue...she'd had experience with that at some of her locations and had had to install new/larger drains. She did tell us which local laundromat allows washing new rag quilts. I would have expected a lot of lint in the dryer, but I never would have realized that the washing part was such an issue; if you've done it successfully at home then I guess you've got a larger than usual drain or you were just lucky
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