ArchaicArcane

Before I started this quilt, I did NOT pre-wash the fabric. My cousin, a long time quilter made me promise not to. I DID however pre-shrink the batting (got it soaking wet, pushed out as much water as I could then put it in a warm dryer)

The quilt started out 96" x 96" I admit that when I initially put it on the bed, I didn't measure it to know how much it "shrunk" from the quilting.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]479619[/ATTACH]

Now that it's been washed (I needed to get the remaining blue lines out) - the seams sit in a different spot on the bed, so I did measure it. 89" on the one side, I didn't measure the other side.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]479620[/ATTACH]

That's roughly 8% shrinkage. That's more than the 3% I expected from the batting even if it wasn't preshrunk.

Then I made a placemat with some of the left over fabrics and did not preshrink the batting. I quilted it, hated my quilting, ripped it all out, then quilted it again. I washed it to get the old needle holes out.

It went from 19.5" x 13.5" to 16.5" x 11.5" - roughly 18% shrinkage. (Previously, it had fit the laptop table it's sitting on)

[ATTACH=CONFIG]479621[/ATTACH]

I do know that I can take these out of the dryer early and stretch and pin them back to their size, or close to it, like a show quilt, but I wanted to know if there was anything I could or should have done differently to minimize the shrinkage to begin with.

Tartan

That's a lot of shrinkage. I usually remove my quilts while still damp from the dryer and lay flat to finish drying. I use Hobbs 80/20 batt, what is the batt you used?

tessagin

I prewash everything, all my fabric with the exceptions of sythetics you know won't shrink.

ArchaicArcane

I think maybe I will do that next time. I have a problem with "Forgot-the-laundry-itis" but I will certainly try to do that next time.

This was Arctic White - supposedly a 100% cotton (what it said on the label in large print but in the fine print it said it was 13% poly scrim!) which is why I preshrunk to begin with. The placemat was a chunk of something I had left, it could have been almost anything cotton or cotton poly blend.

ArchaicArcane

Tessagin, I agree. I usually do but when my cousin made me promise, I thought it would be fine. These are all batiks too, so I really thought the tighter weave would hold its size a little better.

ArchaicArcane

OK, I figured out some of the shrinkage on the placemat - I used a muslin back. I bet the muslin shrunk up a heck of a lot more than the rest. I guess in theory, the backing could have done this on the quilt too, right?

bearisgray

Do you have any of the muslin left that is unwashed?

If yes, you could measure a piece of it "before" - soak it in hot water and let it dry on a towel or hang it if you don't want to put it in a dryer - iron it - and then measure it "after."

You could do the same thing with cold water - just for comparison purposes.

If you do, let us know the results.

I have had "pre-shrunk" muslin shrink a LOT!!!!!

Why in the world would your cousin NOT want you to wash the fabrics before cutting them?

I wash EVERYTHING dunkable before cutting it now.

I had a polyester double knit shrink about four inches in length - and it was only about a yard long to begin with. It was yellow - which has nothing to do with anything - but I remember it well, because I was very surprised that it shrank that much.

I measured hundreds of pieces before and after washing them to check for shrinkage. Some (a very few) did not change size, some shrank maybe an inch or two in length or width, some shrank over two inches in width and/or length per yard.

I am not able to tell - just by looking - how a fabric will behave once it is submerged in water and dried again.

bearisgray

PS - Very nice quilt and pillow covers.

Prism99

In something on the order of 20 years of quilting, I had never run across that batting name. Googled it, but didn't find anything that gave shrinkage on it. I think if you were to switch to a more widely known brand of cotton batting you would be much happier.

Although muslin can shrink a lot on its own, once it's quilted to a batting the shrinkage of the batting takes over. A lot of quilters use unwashed muslin and don't get 18% shrinkage; however, few quilters seem to use thie Arctic Cotton brand of batting and it's easy to see it shrank a lot. Hard to believe you pre-shrank it too!

Edit: In a class I took, Harriet Hargrave passed around a flannel quilt she had made without pre-washing any of the flannel or the batting. It was fine! She had used Hobbs 80/20 batting. I honestly think your problem was caused by the batting.

bearisgray

Did Ms. Hargrave give details about how she washed the flannel quilt?