using flannel
 

Ok so I hope the quilt police aren't looking...I have made several (a whole bunch of quilts in the last year) and have used regular cotton fabric with fine results even after washing. But my next project is going to be made from yummy flannel (moda). I don't want to prewash...what do you think? It will be for me

What is your reason for not wanting to pre-wash flannel? Especially flannel? Flannel is the biggest culprit of shrinkage you'll find.

I'd pre-wash it ... but I pre-wash everything.

I don't usually pure wash fabrics BUT always wash and dry flannel, sometimes twice. I want to be sure that it is done shrinking before I put it on my quilt

I always wash flannel because it really does shrink.

The reason for prewashing flannel is the shrinkage factor PARTICULARLY if you mix it with regular cotton. You don't HAVE to prewash and if you like the puckered look, don't worry about it.

I'm not a pre-washer. It will crinkle, but personally, I like that look.

I'm not a prewasher but unless I'm making a rag quilt out of the flannel, I do prewash it. It seems more inconsistent in its shrinkage than regular quilting cotton to me.

Quite a while back I bought several 10-yard bolts of solid colored flannel from JoAnn's when they were having their Black Friday sale. (It was $10 per bolt - who could resist?) I decided to use some of the cream-colored flannel for the back of a comfort quilt. As always, I washed the flannel first. It felt yummy, thick, very nice - but when it was washed it pilled quite a bit. I didn't want that on the back of the quilt, so I used the flannel as batting instead. Another bolt, that I used earlier, didn't pill at all.

So... another reason to wash flannel is to see if it's going to pill.

Thanks for the giggle!

I had a friend who made a rag quilt and didn't prewash. Some of the flannels shrank more than the others after washing the finished quilt, making the whole quilt kind of bunchy in spots. I still feel sad for her when I think of that...

Not all fabrics shrink at the same rate.

Not even fleece. Ask me how I know!

Sorry Quilt Police but I never pre-wash fabrics and that includes FLANNEL! I buy from Thousandsofbolts and other online quilting fabric suppliers from over the pond and in over 200 quilts, or more I have never had a problem!

Have I been lucky I don't think so if you buy the right materials for a job they work and I use quilting flannel a lot for my own and family quilts and they get used, and laundered a lot.

I don't wash my regular fabric, but I do prewash flannels. Regular fabrics usually have a 1-2% rate of shrinkage. Flannels can shrink 5-6% and more. That can cause a lot of problems in a quilt. If you really want to not prewash the flannels, then you would need to lots of quilting...which I usually don't do with flannels. I like minimal quilting to keep the quilt feeling soft, and not too stiff.

I don't prewash but I use a lot of water (steam) when I iron/press. I keep a spritz bottle next to my ironing board and spritz everything several times during the sewing process. I also figure that the quilting will help stabilize everything. I've never (personally) had a problem and I've been using flannel for many years. Many of my quilts are backed with flannel.