Regardless of where you purchased it, the manufacturer needs to know that this is happening and you are not happy. Most of the time, if you take time to talk to them about these things, they will treat you well by replacing it. There are too many quilters out there for them to have unhappy customers.

i'm only familiar with the joann's in my area and i've found the fabric to cost the same price as the LQS yet it is such an inferior quality - i refuse to purchase fabric from them.

i only purchase notions from joann's with a coupon.

Fabric is too expensive and we spend too much time on projects to use inferior stuff that is going to "dissolve" the first time its washed.

Maybe you can make a sample block stitch around the edges and put it through the wash and see how it does?

I get a little fray, after I have cut my fabric, but, I assume that to be normal and go about doing my projects. I have never expeirience what you speak of and hope I never do.
I agree with the others to maybe use some spray starch or sizing and see if that helps. I would also contact Joanne's as well as the fabric manufacuter.

There could be a few problems here. If the fabric was from the end of the mill run, it had been stretched to the inth degree and now that it has had a time to relax of course it will ravel a bit.

If the fabric had been in the store for a while could be another problem. Handling, moving, humidity, lighting and the like will cause problems over time.

Whenever I've had this happen I find that if I starch the fabric heavily and then iron with a dry iron helps this problem. I use the old fashioned liquid starch and mix my own so that I can control the strength. For something like this I would use a 50/50 mix. You can find it in the laundry section and it's in a blue bottle.

I would seriously doubt that if you put it in a quilt that the quilt will fall apart. You have to remember that your seams will be covered by batting and backing and the quilting will also help relieve the stress on the seams.

I am not affiliated with JoAnn's. Yes you can find inferior fabric as well as quality fabric. No matter WHERE you shop you will find different qualities of fabrics.

Hope this helps.

If the fabric has really bad manners, don't use it.

No point in "contaminating" the other fabrics with something that won't hold up.

I bet it's the finishing agents they use to make the fabrics feel smoother, heavier, and kind of "slithery". SSI does a lot of that.

It's sort of like putting conditioner in your hair. It's smoother and softer, but it won't stay up.

It will improve if you prewash it thoroughly.

The thing is- it isn't one of the 7 prints I bought..it is every single print. ALL SEVEN. I bought it online, pretty much when it came out. I know that was a big no-no, but I like to look at fabric online when I get bored and it looked so pretty. The starch is a good idea, so is a good shrinking. I live in a small town, so I don't have a lot of options for fabric.

So sad when something like that happens. It sounds like this run of fabric has issues and I would be hesitant to use it in a quilt.