alisonquilts

Thank you all for your sympathy! I always have a "Plan B" for the backing - this time it will be a pieced back!

On the hot/hot issue: I prewash all my fabrics this way to rule out any potential color loss or shrinkage problems - especially when the final product is for a paying customer. And yes, I go for maximum shrinkage intentionally. In this case the fabric is dark red, and has what feels like a pretty normal density for a backing fabric - not as tight as you'd expect for "top" material, but closer weave than basic muslin. Since I cannot control what the recipients do with the quilts I make (even though I always give care instructions stressing cold wash and line dry) I try to make them as bullet-proof as possible before I hand them over! Usually shrinkage is in the 1-3% range, with perhaps a little distortion to the lie of the fabric.

I have NEVER had shrinkage like this, even with flannel, and since I "pretreat" all of my fabrics the same way I feel this is (fortunately) an outlier.

I won't contact Henry Glass because I am not expecting to be compensated: I am sure that their care instructions do indeed say "cold wash, low temp dry by blowing gently across the fabric with slightly puckered lips on a warm summer day", and that my kamikaze approach contravenes all of their instructions. Also, almost all of the sites I come across do say that "up to 10% shrinkage" is possible - I've just never had it happen before! I was posting more to show that that "up to 10% shrinkage" is a real possibility...something all the non-prewashers may want to know (she says, stirring up the wash/not-wash controversy yet again.)

Alison-Recovered-From-Her-Dismay-And-Embracing-The-Idea-Of-A-Pieced-Back

Edit - I see that Quilt E has just made many of the same points I have - sorry for the repeats!