How bad is it to mix prewashed and not washed cotton fabric?
#1
Super Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2013
Posts: 1,660
How bad is it to mix prewashed and not washed cotton fabric?
I am the lucky recipient of several tote bags full of prewashed fabric. I don't usually prewash my fabric. If I'm making wall hangings the fabric may never get washed at all. I'm reluctant to wash some of my precuts. so it is a big no no to mix prewashed and unwashed fabric in a quilt?
#6
Super Member
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Chula Vista CA
Posts: 7,360
I wash before I do anything, but that is because the chemicals on the new fabric destroys my fingernails. But people on here report all the time they use both - washed and unwashed together. If you are going to do a tight quilting one it you shouldn't have any trouble.
#7
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Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Northern Michigan
Posts: 12,861
Pretty much every quilt I've made ( hundreds) has contained prewashed and unwashed cotton fabrics. I've never had a bad thing happen because of it. Generally I prewash if I'm using deeply saturated colors of hand dyes or batiks that might bleed, if a fabric smells funky or feels funky or if the weave seems kind of loose & I want to tighten it up. If none of those issues are present I don't bother. I always wash and dry my finished projects. I consider it the final step after binding
#8
Initially I prewashed everything. Now I usually just do flannels as they can have such different rates of shrinkage from one piece to the next. So most of my quilts have both prewashed and not prewashed in them. I'm not aware of any major problems as a result.
Where my problems occur are due to either failure to square up before stitching to next section or scant 1/4" getting too scant for whatever reason.
Where my problems occur are due to either failure to square up before stitching to next section or scant 1/4" getting too scant for whatever reason.
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