Originally Posted by
suern3
Do you mean you washed the individual blocks before you completed the quilt? If so, I can imagine that wouldn't turn out so well. I think even washing a completed top before quilting it would be tricky. I don't mean to sound like "quilt police" by any means. I believe we should do what works for us, but to me, individual blocks can be kind of fragile. We can even stretch them out of shape by ironing too vigorously. So I prewash some fabrics and some I don't. I have never prewashed precuts, have combined prewashed and not washed, but I do wash completed quilts with color catchers without problems. I can sure understand why you didn't feel up to prewashing and ironing, etc. So my advice would be to just finish your quilt and then wash and I think it will work for you. Quilting will keep it from shrinking unevenly.
number one ..I don't iron ..i 'press'. i've done the wash the whole pieced block of scraps in past w colorcatchers and it worked out very well. but they were 20 patch blocks of squares. like the person in this blog, my 'washing' is more ..get wet, swish around by hand ..spin dry on delicate ..i differ from her in that i don't have an outside line for drying ..it would be blown into the next state if i did ..i dryer finish for few minutes, press and all is good. minimal shredding of threads and shrinkage. but the points were difficult to make work after washing/drying sq-in-sq blocks. enough shrinkage in some of the older scraps, tho nice hand ans and apparently 'nice' fabric, difficult to make four block units work correctly. i cheated a lot. couple of years ago during a row by row exchange w online friends & i
did measure a particularly lovely vintage fabric scrap before washing it --it shrank about 3/8" ..i was so surprised by that amount, and glad i prewashed it. if posting pics on board fr my ipad weren't so difficult, i'd post some of the finished four block units to show how wel they finally turned out.
most points turned out perfectly. i have degenerative spinal disease -advanced. have had for ~50 yrs. it's now pretty bad. i have
always, always prewashed my precuts and scraps and, of course, the yardages. the chemicals used in making fabric, then the chemicals used in sizing to protect the fabric from our grubby hands i the fabric stores makes me
have to prewash ...whether for quilts or making clothes for myself and my son. but this time, after enduring a particularly bad spell for the last 12 months ..i took the least painful route. ergo, i found this bloggers post interesting and no more shortcuts for me in future, regardless the pain.