IF you are a wash/soak your fabrics before cutting person. . .
#1
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Location: MN
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IF you are a wash/soak your fabrics before cutting person. . .
IF you are a wash/soak your fabrics before cutting person - - -
Do you measure the size of your fabrics before and after dunking them?
I've found that fabrics do not shrink/relax at the same rate. Some stay the same size - a very few have stretched - some only shrink widthwise - some shrink lengthwise - and a very few shrink/contract in both directions.
One of the pieces that shrank the most was a Roc-Lon tea-dyed muslin that said "pre-shrunk"
Do you measure the size of your fabrics before and after dunking them?
I've found that fabrics do not shrink/relax at the same rate. Some stay the same size - a very few have stretched - some only shrink widthwise - some shrink lengthwise - and a very few shrink/contract in both directions.
One of the pieces that shrank the most was a Roc-Lon tea-dyed muslin that said "pre-shrunk"
#3
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Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: Live Oak, Texas
Posts: 6,133
I never measure it I put it in the washer as soon as I get home with it. I always buy a little more than I will need to make up for any shrinkage. If it looks like it has shrunk to bad I measure before I start cutting to see if I need to buy more.
#4
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Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: Ohio
Posts: 952
I wash all that yard goods I purchase and dry them to almost dry then hang them up and finger press them as I take them out of the dryer love the selvedges if I don't tidy them up a bit. I try to do this when I bring them in the house. Then, they are ready except for ironing with starch when I begin a project. Now, I have purchased charms, layer cakes, and jelly rolls and followed most of the advice saying "don't wash". I like the convenience that I don't have to cut them however, I found when I ironed them while piecing, some of the strips from the jelly roll shrank almost 1/3" after I had pieced them, was not happy. Fixed it but learned. Still I will buy them but learned...a lot.
#5
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Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Between the dashes of a tombstone
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I wash all that yard goods I purchase and dry them to almost dry then hang them up and finger press them as I take them out of the dryer love the selvedges if I don't tidy them up a bit. I try to do this when I bring them in the house. Then, they are ready except for ironing with starch when I begin a project. Now, I have purchased charms, layer cakes, and jelly rolls and followed most of the advice saying "don't wash". I like the convenience that I don't have to cut them however, I found when I ironed them while piecing, some of the strips from the jelly roll shrank almost 1/3" after I had pieced them, was not happy. Fixed it but learned. Still I will buy them but learned...a lot.
#8
No, I don't measure before hand but I am pretty religious about pre-washing and drying. As long as everything has shrunk up for the most part. My thought process is I don't want unwashed and washed scraps in the same bin. I just think everything turns out better when fabrics are washed. Just me though.
#10
I have never measured so I don't know by how much the fabrics have shrunk. Often I can tell that they have (by the feel, by distortion at the selvedge edge, by the whole thing ending up cattywampus), but the only time I measured was when I had my Backing Saga last January, when the durned thing lost 11%.
I recently bought a set of 10" squares because I needed a lot of a particular color, but ony a little in any particular pattern. They were black so I soaked them in hot water with a squirt of dish detergent until they didn't lose any more color (several rinses!!), then dried them on a rack. I was cutting strip sets out of them, so I thought I'd just stack 'em up and let it rip...but nope, they had shrunk at several different rates. Only two out of 25 didn't shrink at all; most shrunk at least 1/2" in one dimension and several lost 3/4" in both dimensions. I had factored shrinkage into my cutting plan, so it didn't undo my project, but it did leave me shaking my head!
Alison
I recently bought a set of 10" squares because I needed a lot of a particular color, but ony a little in any particular pattern. They were black so I soaked them in hot water with a squirt of dish detergent until they didn't lose any more color (several rinses!!), then dried them on a rack. I was cutting strip sets out of them, so I thought I'd just stack 'em up and let it rip...but nope, they had shrunk at several different rates. Only two out of 25 didn't shrink at all; most shrunk at least 1/2" in one dimension and several lost 3/4" in both dimensions. I had factored shrinkage into my cutting plan, so it didn't undo my project, but it did leave me shaking my head!
Alison
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08-20-2012 03:35 PM