Quilting Cottons Shrinkage ...
 

OK, I know... I should prewash fabrics... but... I'm not creating heirlooms here (and least they don't look like heirlooms to me!) ... lol.... So prewashing just isn't going to happen if I can help it....

But have any of you found that some brands of cottons shrink more than others? To the point of being troublesome? Or is it just a crap-shoot?

Just curious.

I do not prewash, for the most part. As long as you quilt the layers moderately, batting controls shrinkage when you wash a quilt. Fabrics can shrink very differently from each other when washed alone. That difference really doesn't matter after moderate quilting has joined the fabrics to the batting.

Shrinkage of individual fabrics does matter if you tie a quilt, especially if the ties are not close together. It might also affect a quilt where the quilting lines are far apart (say the 10" allowed by Warm and Natural batting). In those cases, the fabric isn't tied to the batting sufficiently for the batting to control fabric shrinkage.

Even flannels (which are notorious for sometimes shrinking many inches!!!) do not require prewashing as long as you are careful to keep the quilting lines close together (I would say 3" apart would be the max distance for flannels).

I found fabrics do indeed shrink differently. I hate to preWash but especially with darker fabrics I am afraid not to. Some fabrics are just woven tighter/looser and if you plan to mix in batiks I find they don't shrink much at all.. Guess it is just personal preference and how "picky" you are with the consistency of the 'crinkling' on your final result.. If you deal with flannel you can get HUGE shrinking differences, that is the one fabric type I would say you should always pre-wash!

Even within a manufacturer's fat quarter bundle I'm always surprised at the difference between the "hand" of fabrics within the same line. They do shrink at different rates because the weaves are apparently different.

Many years ago I pre-washed a bunch of fabrics at the same time. I measured all of them before and after and YES different fabrics had a different shrink rate. I no longer have the details of the experiment, but I remember the outcome well enough. It was not all one manufacturer across the board ... some Moda's had more shrink than others, ditto for some of the other top brands. It was "scattered" ... but there was a lot of variance between the least and most amount of shrinkage.

I was making an item recently and I couldn't believe how much the fabric shrunk in from side to side - just pressing it during construction (it was a 10" wide piece of fabric) . I hadn't bought that specific brand before. I just had never experienced watching fabric shrink so much right in front of my eyes - just because I misted it with Best Press (and no... I didn't soak 'er down. lol)

Good to hear on the flannels... I don't sew with those often enough to have known that. Thanks!

Edit to add... I meant to quote Jeanne on this one... thank, Jeanne. :)

And that seemed to be the case with this one project I did that caused me to ask the question. ack! One of the fabrics shrank terribly - but a coordinating fabric from the same manufacturer, same line didn't shrink.

Ripstitcher, even Moda bundles have some pieces that are nice & beefy & others not so much... sometimes even the same print in a different color is completely different...like woven at different mills different.

Years ago I attended a workshop given by Harriet Hargrave. She showed us a quilt she had made out of flannel fabrics to prove to her quilt shop customers that it was not necessary to prewash because of shrinkage. She measured the quilt before washing and after washing. The shrinkage was exactly the amount expected from the batting used (about 3% for Hobbs 80/20). The same flannel fabrics washed on their own would have varied in how much they shrank, up to 15% for some. The reason the quilt came out okay is because HH had done her usual moderate amount of machine quilting before washing. Machine quilting binds the three layers together so they become "one" with shrinkage controlled by the batting.

Not sure how many of Harriet Hargrave's quilt shop customers were convinced, but I certainly was! This is why I do not worry about fabric shrinkage in the quilts I make (which all get at least a moderate amount of machine quilting).

Since I do not prewash fabrics, I typically also do not use spray starch on them. (The trigger on the sprayer is not good for my hands anyway, what with the beginnings of arthritis in my thumb joints.) I haven't yet run into a fabric that shrank from using steam in my iron, although I have heard of it. Guess in that case I would just use a dry iron.

I don't prewash because of shrinking. I prewash because of bleeding & fading and so the fabric sizing & dye doesn't aggravate my allergies. I love working with clean & starched fabric. My teacher specified all fabrics washed & pressed with magic sizing before the first class. I'm now a big fan of Sta-flo.