How do you keep fabric from raveling?
04-04-2014, 08:30 AM
#22
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Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: NE Missouri
Posts: 6,418
I pre-washed batik for a project. Then I ripped for the borders. Had strings everywhere. My solution was fray chek dabbed sparingly along the edges and then when I got the strings cut, they didn't re-ravel. I keep a bottle near my sewing machine. Trick seems to be to use sparingly as it really makes the fabric hard or something and you don't want that on the quilt top just the seam margins.
04-04-2014, 09:16 AM
#23
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Join Date: Jan 2009
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What I did do, however, was before throwing in the dryer, I detangled all snarls and I trimmed the major threads off (not everything, just the bad guys. And I saved them all! so now I have a huge ziploc bag full of lovely clumps of thread. Someday I'll lay them all between twin pieces of soluble interfacing and will sew a network of thread over them to hopefully create a new piece of "fabric".
http://stegart.blogspot.com/2011/03/...y-told-me.html
04-04-2014, 09:20 AM
#24
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Location: Western Wisconsin
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That is more likely due to not pre-washing the batting rather than not pre-washing the fabrics. If the batting was cotton, it probably shrank 3% in the first wash. This problem can be solved by using polyester batting, which does not shrink at all. After quilting, batting controls shrinkage -- not the fabric.
04-04-2014, 12:29 PM
#26
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Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Ogdensburg, NY
Posts: 448
Thanks everyone. I think I may try the pinking since hubby just bought me a new pair of pinking shears. 
As for all the answers about batting, the table runners I'm making are the 10 minute ones
(which take me about 1 1/2 hours lol), so threre is no batting.
As for all the answers about batting, the table runners I'm making are the 10 minute ones (which take me about 1 1/2 hours lol), so threre is no batting.
04-04-2014, 12:38 PM
#27
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Location: Corpus Christi, Tx.
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I just clip the raveling off. I don't know where you get your fabric from but when mine ravels after washing I really don't lose that much. I barely lose 1/16" from each piece. Depending on the fabric sometimes I just throw it into a laundry bag. That way it's still contained in the bag even if it gets passed all around the agitator. I always press it after it comes out of the dryer.
04-04-2014, 02:46 PM
#28
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Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: Washington
Posts: 855
I save mine, too, for art quilts. It's called 'Thread Junk'...something I learned from Terri Stegmiller. http://stegart.blogspot.com/2011/03/...y-told-me.html
http://stegart.blogspot.com/2011/03/...y-told-me.html[ATTACH=CONFIG]470104[/ATTACH]
04-04-2014, 03:12 PM
#29
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Location: Southern USA
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I heard on one of the tv news shows that the water problem in Ca will have hidden costs like the coin laundry cost will almost double per load.
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09-04-2012 02:48 AM
