Washing Quilt Top?
 

I just recieved a box of random cotton squares, 8-10" across. I made a small quilt with some of them, and it shrunk funny in the washer. (Most of my fabric I prewash, but I wasn't sure how to keep these from shredding in the washer, so I just went for it).

Has anyone tried washing a quilt top before putting the sandwich together? Would that possible help prevent the wierd deformation in the finished quilt?

What batting did you use? And how close together were the quilting lines? Ordinarily moderate quilting will prevent fabrics from distorting due to uneven shrinkage because at that point the batting controls shrinkage. If you tied the quilt or had quilting lines quite far apart, that is likely the cause of the problem. You may be able to fix the quilt by getting it thoroughly wet and blocking it to size. Once dry, you can add additional quilting to the blocked quilt.

Washing a quilt top before sandwiching is actually riskier because there is no quilting to prevent the uneven shrinkage and you can get a lot of frayed seams.

I don't think it's a good idea to wash a quilt top before sandwiching. You're likely to end up with a terrible mess of tangled threads on the back from frayed seams.

If I had the squares, I think I'd put them into a sink of water, hang to dry until damp, then iron them dry. That should take care of any possible shinkage problem.

I would soak the squares in hot water for an hour or so (only like colors together) - one can use the sink or a kettle/cooking pot, or a large bowl - when I have an automatic washer handy, I dump them in and use the spin cycle to get some of the water out of them - (if not, I just put them in a colander until a lot of the water has run off) - and then either put them in the dryer or hang on a drying rack or on a towel until dry enough to iron.

It is important to keep agitation to a minimum to minimize fraying - putting the pieces in mesh lingerie washing bags can help.

I had to wash a quilt top (by hand) once before sandwiching - I would prefer not to do it again. It did cause a lot of fraying that made the back of the top untidy.

I don't think that I would wash a pieced quilt top. I suspect it would fray and become very unstable.

If you want to wash the pieces before you piece the quilt, I do have a hint. Gently wash the pieces (I use quite warm water) in the sink, then put them in your salad spinner a few at a time and spin the water out. I then usually press them dry.

Yes, I did say the salad spinner. I read in on another post, tried it, and it works great.

Here is a picture of the quilt before washing. The quilting lines are approximately 3/4" apart. I used a polyester batting.
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I did manage to block the quilt and return it to a mostly square state. When it came out of the washing machine it was all "skewed."

I use a large mesh bag for washing small fabric pieces. You can find these mesh bags at a dollar store.

The quilt is lovely!

The only thing I can think of is that all the quilting lines are on the bias. Fabrics shrink most along the straight-of-grain (one more than the other, but I can't remember if it's the crossgrain or lengthwise grain that shrinks more). I'm thinking the solution would be to add quilting lines in the opposite direction, so that you don't have the long narrow strips of unquilted fabric.

I agree that pre-shrinking the squares before sewing would help the next quilt not do this. An all-over quilting pattern such as meander would also be likely to prevent skewing next time.

The binding may have caused the "funny skewed" shrinking,mine sometimes does. I just steam the quilt gently pulling and stretcing the binding, sometimes dampen with starch.