Washing and drying flannel fabric for quilting
 

I read the recent thread regarding washing/drying flannel and because I have several pieces of flannel to wash, I wanted to try and minimize raveling and distortion.

I folded my yardage in half and took my quilting clips and clipped around the raw edges and then washed and dried the pieces. It worked very well. The red and striped fabric are from a LQS and the small pieces are from Wal Mart. All worked the same with this method. So happy that I read that thread and prepared my fabrics first before laundering them.

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When washing flannel fabric I put the two ends together and then serge them with a big loose stitch. It is quick and easy. When it is dry I just use my rotary cutter to cut off the sergged end and I lose very little fabric.

Great tips for cutting down all those pesky strings/ frayed edges. Thanks.

I use this system for washing a lot of yardage. It works great and like quiltingshe says, you lose very little fabric.

thanks for sharing your experience

Those clips are so expensive I would hesitate to put them in a machine and dryer. I like quiltingshe's method. I have washed and dried LQS flannel with very little fraying.

A great idea...large safety pins would also work to hold edges together...

I just use my pinking blade rotary cutter and trim off a quarter of an inch on each side of the fabric. It doesn't totally eliminate raveling but it does make it manageable.

I serge the raw edges of fabric with a big, "loose" stitch (3 thread) before it gets put in the washing machine - if I am feeling very frugal, I can easily remove the stitching and lose NO fabric at all. Of course, the needle holes are still there, but they would usually be covered by a seam allowance.

I really like the idea of using the large safety pins, I don't own a surger so I can't do that method and have not had any luck with the pinking blade cutting the fabric properly. I don't use the quilting clips but was wondering if they would break in the wash and/or melt in the dryer. Glad it worked for you and thanks for posting your idea.