MacThayer

OK, well now you know a soul who prewashes precuts. That's me. I prewash everything. I didn't always do it that way, but a long time ago, when I was making a "Mother of the Bride" dress for a very special lady, I wanted to wash it because I had used so much starch on the delicate fabric in order to cut it correctly (remember, we used scissors back then) so I washed it in lukewarm water. Well, the red in the sashing bled all over the front of the dress. What a mess! And here we were, a week before the wedding, and I still had to fit a couple of bridesmaid dresses for girls coming from out of town. The Mother of the Bride dress was a total loss; there was red dye everywhere. I had to start from scratch, meaning buy the fabric all over again, which meant I made no profit and actually lost money on the dress. I worked 20 hours a day, I barely slept, I hardly ate, I just worked on that complicated dress. When she came for her final fitting, I was terrified I'd have to do a lot of alterations again, but by using the first dress as a template, at least I avoided that. You'd better believe I prewashed that fabric! The dress turned out beautiful, the bridesmaids were fitted, and I stayed awake long enough to take photos at the wedding before I crashed, but I've never forgotten that experience. And I never send fabric to anyone that I haven't prewashed. I will not be responsible for someone putting a quilt together and my piece bleeding and ruining all that work.

When I get tired of ironing, and especially if I'm just starting a big project, what I will do is take my prewashed fabric (I don't mind washing) and starch it so it's quite moist, and then I take it to the local dry cleaners. I have an arrangement with them. They will run my fabric through their "mangles" and iron them in no time flat. (Mangles are big machines with double rollers that they run sheets and things through to iron them for hospitals and hotels and places like that. I know. I used to work on a mangle in a laundry -- eons ago!) No pulling or stretching of the fabric. It just rolls through the mangle, and I've never noticed that it's warped in any way. Then I can go straight into cutting.

I'm doing what's comfortable for me with my quilting. I'm not saying you must do the same. Nobody made me the Quilt Police, and I don't want the job. I'm just sharing experiences.

Cheers!