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Thanks Prism for helping me out.......I have already cut my flannel (after prewashing and drying) and I embroidered the rectangles as you can see from pix, and put sashing around the blocks. It turned out larger than I had intended, but that's ok; it's for DD who is tall and can use the extra sizing (everything I make for her is usually too short. LOL) My quandry at this point is for the backing fabric: leftover (prewashed) flannel, which I am going to piece......should I starch and dry that before cutting and piecing? I assume the answer would be yes, but, thought I'd check with you.....Great advice.....thanks again.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Prism99

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sewze

I'm a newbie and am attempting to make a flannel throw. My ? is can you starch flannel? Thanks for helping.

Flannel is the only fabric I prewash. I prewash and dry it *twice*! It's also the only fabric that I use the 1:1 starch solution on before I ever start cutting it. The starch stabilizes the flannel so cutting and piecing are very accurate. Without starch, flannel tends to stretch and distort while you are working with it.

I haven't made a flannel rag quilt yet, but would like to. Not sure I'd bother to starch flannel for that kind of quilt because cutting and piecing accuracy are not at all critical to the pattern. For regular pieced flannel quilts, though -- and especially if the pieces are small -- I like to starch heavily before cutting.

That is a lovely quilt, Sewze!

I would heavily starch the flannel to be used as backing if you are planning to machine quilt. It will help prevent tucks and puckers, plus I think the quilt slides more easily over the bed of the sewing machine.

I'm not sure how starching affects hand quilting. It's probably not necessary to starch backings at all if you are hand quilting, since you want to be able to manipulate the sandwich onto the needle.

Thank you, Prism, for all your help....I wish I had know about the starching before I did the top...as you can tell, there is some 'wonky' sashing piecing....I suppose they stretched. I am going to machine quilt, so, I will starch the backing. Next time I know to heavily starch everything.....Thank you for your compliments.

Yes, I made my own. I found it online and made it exactly like it said and it works well. No gum up and no smell. I did not put in the Essential oils or any kind of fragrance.