My sister washes all her quilt fabric when it comes in the house for the first time. Unless it is red, I usually pass on the washing as I like the feel of the crisp material when I am cutting and sewing. Pressing it is good but it is never as crisp as when it is new.

She recently bought some jelly rolls. Lovely stuff, but then she washed it.
So my question to her and my friends here at the board is this? How can she be accurate in her piecing now with the fabric all frayed!?

Would you wash jelly rolls?

I am not a prewasher either. I personally like the feel of the new fabric and my time is limited in sewing so it won't go into ironing:))Plus I like the look of older quilts so this works great for me:)) I do know that people that prewash their charms, jelly, etc...they usually put them in panty hose or a netting that is w/a zipper and made for washing smaller items.

As far as her being accurate w/her rolls now...depends on how much she lost washing them. If they were frayed beyone the correct measurements..then she will just have to recut to one that works for all the strips so they are even. (which will throw the measurments off w/specific patterns) I would imagine she is very frustrated at this moment:))Skeat

oh no...I imagine she has a huge tangle of strips and thread knots. I prewash reds since they thend to bleed the most. Anything else, if I think it may bleed, I'll take a snippet of the fabric and put it in a small glass of warm water, let it set for an hour and hold it up to see if there's any color in the water. It's perfectly ok to prewash in your kitchen sink to avoid the tangle monster that the washer creates. To answer your questions however, each strip needs to be pressed and trimmed of the threads then measured to judge any accuracy. She may end up with 1.5 inch strips. I would not prewash jelly rolls in a washing machine but by hand only.

I do not pre-wash the jelly rolls. It would make sure a mess and would lose it's accuracy for sure.

:(

I'm like you. I will check the reds out as I have had them bleed. I also will safety pin them together before putting them in a mesh bag so they don't get beat together even on a gentle cycle. Hope this idea helps your sis.

I prewashed some Moda Charm Squares and ALL of them shrunk a full 1/4 inch. (these weren't frays,thiis was actual shrinkage!) I didn't think a "quality" fabric should shrink at all. I guess you learn something new every day.

Moda shrinks a LOT. More than any other brand of fabric I have used.

I am very reluctant to use jelly rolls and charm squares for this reason (I always prewash to get rid of excess dye and chemicals) and also because I can't be sure that they are cut accurately on the grain. If a fabric strip comes out of the wash all shredded up and warped, I probably don't want to use it in a quilt, anyhow.

Thanks for asking this. I've just bought a bunch of charms and layer cakes. I was afraid to wash them with all the stuff that already comes off of them. I've washed smaller cuts of fabric (quarter and eighth) and they came out pretty bad so I didn't wash these. I did put them in the mesh bag to wash them and still got alot of thread tangles and balling. I'll just know that I will get the shrink after its washed.

I'd rather it shrink before I make the quilt than after I have made it. My Springtime quilt was made from jelly rolls and boy did it shrink when I washed it. I had made it to fit my queen sized bed with about 2 or 3 inches of overhang and now there is no overhang. So the Jelly rolls I just got will be washed in the sink so they'll shrink now instead of later.