gale

For those of you that use the laundromat, do you only do that for the first wash? Or do you take it every time? I want to make a rag quilt but with my daughter's severe (possibly anaphylactic) contact allergies I would rather not wash at a laundromat unless i can bring it home and rewash it in our own washer.

suern3

If it were me, considering your daughter's allergies, I would just wash it at home. Better to take a chance with your washer than with her health, IMHO. The first rag quilt that I made I took to the Laundromat due to some of the things I heard. Once I got there it was not clean inside at all and had an odor of natural gas and I just couldn't do it. I took it home and washed it in my front loader washer, dried in the dryer and had no problems. That's how I've done since. That quilt was made with flannel, homespun and regular cotton fabric with a flannel batting. Good luck with your decision

jhoward

I did wash one at home, it wasn't good....take it to the Laundromat. Better to safe. I just finished one, it will not be washed at home.

AliKat

That's how I do it too. Easier to clean out their lint traps and not hurt my own machines. Hint: wear old clothes as you will get linty too.

Tiggersmom

I had trouble with the washer....almost broke my machine. I was expecting to stop the dryer but almost flooded my house with plugging the drain in the wall as I don't have a laundry tub/sink.

CMK

I take mine to laundormat and clean that machine best I can😊

Pam B

First wash at the laundromat. After that I always wash at home.

gale

Wow, that's not good. I think I'll just not make any rag quilts. We have a septic tank and I don't want to cause any problems with it.

Actually I've heard of people putting the quilt in a bag for the first few washes. Maybe that would strain out a lot of the threads. I'll have to do some more research.

ArchaicArcane

A lot of washers (our front loader included) have a trap inline in the drain hose inside the machine. It manages to catch things like a bra strap that somehow got torn off a bra, broke a credit card in half and trapped it and obscene amounts of lint.

When it gets clogged, the front loader we have stops draining (possibly stops agitating too. It's been a while since we had trouble with it.). When it was on warranty, the repair man came out and removed the trap and said we wouldn't have trouble with it again because everything would just wash down the drain.

Well, I'd rather clean the trap than call a plumber (or fix the plumbing myself) so while he was here, I was watching carefully what he'd done and put it back together shortly afterward (after cleaning it out of course). Now it's regular maintenance and if we've forgotten to do the maintenance and the machine stops draining, we know where to look first. Also if I'm missing something that might have been laundered, I know where to look now too!

I did find an exploded diagram of our machine online, for the purposes of ordering parts and that shows where the trap is. This should be possible for most machines. Hopefully, it can save a few people a large washer repair bill.