grann of 6

Mine are still clean and not stretched after quilting several hundred quilts over the past 7 years, see no need to wash them or replace them. Pinning has had no effect on them. If the need arose I would just replace rather than wash them.

tallchick

Bingo! Yes I should have clarified! But, FYI I did wash mine in cold water with Woolite, and dried on the lowest cool setting and they came out fantastic, no shrinkage and nice and straight again. I have the HandiQuilter Super Leaders and I pin my quilts. I’ve tried and was not a fan of the Red Snappers, and not a fan of zippers either.

sewingpup

I have never washed mine and don't think I ever will...will replace if they stretch too badly....I do try and put a big quilt on every now and then to help put them back into shape.....if I put too many small quits on, they do seem to stretch a bit in the middle....I always pin my quilts on using the center mark....I have had mine 8-9 years but only quilt for myself....I have done about 54 quilts on my set-up now....

UFOs Galore

I bought a used longarm. I washed the leaders. They needed washing. I had to pull the Velcro off, press the leaders, then I sewed the Velcro back on and trimmed the excess 6” of Velcro that didn’t shrink as much as the leaders. Then, I went out and bought new leaders .

Christine-

I just realized, I don't use the measurements on the leaders anyway so if they shrink it's not life altering. I use a center line mark and that's it. Once you roll the quilt the measurements get covered up so I've always just used a 120" tape measure.

cindi

I was told by my dealer not to wash the leaders. They will shrink. However, Kimmyquilts has an awesome tutorial on how to straighten out-of-kilter leaders here: http://www.kimmyquilt.com/straighten...ur-leaders.htm

I used this method on my old frame and it worked perfectly!

GEMRM

That's a great explanation/tutorial! Thanks for sharing.

JustAbitCrazy

I washed mine once after spot cleaning caused spot shrinkage and wrinkling. So I figured I may as well wash them in hot water to get all the shrinkage out of the way. They did shrink alot, they are canvas (Gammill). Ironing the wrinkles out of them was a huge, huge job, not easy to get wrinkles out of heavy canvas. i thought I'd never get done ironing them. But now that they are clean, if I do get a spot, I can spot clean them and not worry.