I am a prewasher. Every piece of quilter’s cotton fabric that comes into my house is staged in the kitchen for prewashing by hand. I do it in a special white plastic basin, reserved for that purpose, and I do it methodically and thoroughly.
I am NOT a fabric dyer and my methods are those of an average quilter who likes to use reliable fabric.
Here are the details of why I prewash and how I do it. This is all based on my experience in quilting since 1976. I like to prewash so that there are NO SURPRISES when the quilt is finished. And for other reasons, too.
Remember, this is all based on my own experience and if your experience is different then I’m sure you’ll use your own judgment. Every time I see this topic discussed in an open forum on the internet I see a variety of opinions. Here’s mine!
Why prewash?
1. You want the fabric to pretty much shrink as much as it’s going to before you put it in the quilt. It may shrink more, over time, but you also want that shrinkage to be at the same rate for all pieces. I like the vintage “crinkled” look, but I forego that for a consistency in shrinkage and more control. For the optimum result, put the damp fabric in the dryer. I admit that I hang mine to dry occasionally, especially in the summer when it will dry quickly in the sun. Again, I’m sacrificing what a hot dryer will do for the fun in the sun. And hold that thought because we will come back to the dryer issue.
[Note: See separate discussion on flannel fabrics in blog post https://fiberstothehome.blogspot.com/2020/12/flannel-fuzzy-love.html ]
2. You want the fabric to shed as much color as it’s going to before you put it in the quilt.
This is a complex
issue. Basically:
Sometimes a fabric just needs to
shed a little color and then it’s fine.
Sometimes a fabric needs to shed a LOT of color over a wash and
several rinsings and then it’s fine.
Sometimes a fabric bleeds with every wash/rinse and then you need
to decide whether to set the color or discard the fabric.
You do NOT want to give a quilt
to a baby with a mystery finishing chemical on it.
Your skin is your largest organ! And it absorbs chemicals. Handling unwashed fabric for piecing or quilting gives that chemical an opportunity to soak into your body, too.
I wash each piece by hand in the hottest water that comes out of the tap and with a small amount of blue Dawn dishwashing liquid. If you are sensitive to the finishing chemicals, use dishwashing gloves. I don’t. But I rinse my hands well.
If you have children or elders in the house who might scald themselves
on the hottest water, use a setting in the lower part of that range.
Checking the temperature setting on your hot water tank is relatively easy
and you should learn to do it.
If you acquire fabric from a household, an estate, or the guild “free table”, you will not know if it has an insect infestation.
So wash it.
If the previous owner says that it has been prewashed, wash it yourself, anyway.
How I do it:
The kind you wash dishes by hand in. Buy a couple.
After a while the basin will become stained with the dye and then you can repurpose
it for something else, like gardening.
2. Of course, I need to change the water frequently. So I tend to prewash “white”
or “off white” fabric first (because it has no dye!). After I take it out of the hot
water/Dawn solution, I either rinse it under the running tap or immerse it in another
basin full of plain water. Then I can reuse the first basin of water for the next color.
3. If you put more than one fabric in the same wash (like 3-4 pieces of green) and ONE of them bleeds, you won’t know which one. So do each piece individually. It’s not tedious. Just do it.
4. If a piece of fabric bleeds a little, rinse it as many times as it takes to get the water to come out clear. Remember, in the first wash with the Dawn, the fabric remains wet and the water and dye particles trapped in the weave of the fabric need to be rinsed out. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it is still shedding color; you just need to rinse, rinse, rinse until the suspended dye is gone.
5. After four or five rinses, if the fabric is still shedding a lot of color, it’s time to decide whether to set the color.
Use
a liquid chemical product called Retayne.
Buy some and have it on hand. Follow
the bottle directions. Wear
protective gloves if you need to. This
product will very likely SAVE YOUR EXPENSIVE FABRIC and you will be happy.
Occasionally, I find that the first wash with Retayne pulls more color out of the fabric than I expected. But I keep treating it and rinsing it. Yes, I have had to treat it with Retayne twice.
Note: IN MY EXPERIENCE, fabric manufactured offshore tends to bleed LESS than fabric manufactured in the US.
Another Note: Don’t use vinegar. That is largely an old wives’ tale. 100 years ago fabric dyes had different chemical formulas and maybe it worked then. But DON’T let some well meaning person tell you that it works on modern dyes or that they use it all the time. Focus on gaining your own experience. Use Retayne. Buy it at your local quilt shop or from a fabric dyeing specialty store.
You can’t observe how the fabric is shedding dye and the cut ends of your fabric will start to fray and get tangled. There is NO convenience to this. Do it by hand.
6. I squeeze the water out of the fabric and let it drain in a loose ball – sometimes
overnight – but long enough to get it down to the “damp” rather than “sopping” stage.
If I have a BIG piece of fabric, like yardage, I might put it in my washing machine on the spin-only cycle to get the bulk of the water out of it. Then put it in the dryer – your experience will tell you how long to set the dryer timer.
This process that I use has the advantage of making sure that each piece of fabric in my “studio” is ready to use! I never have to guess if it has been prewashed because I know it has! I take the processed fabric and put it in a carefully curated pile…to be pressed and put into bins with like fabrics.
This is also the reason that I rarely use precuts – they are time consuming to wash. But I do it when I need to. And I’m more likely to hang the precuts to dry or dry flat.
When I give a quilt to someone I advise them to use color catchers in the washer the first time they launder the quilt, just to be safe. But I have already prewashed the fabrics so I’m confident that there won’t be a problem.
Note: An 80/20 or 70/30 batting will have significantly less shrinkage than a 100% cotton batting. So if you like the crinkled look, use that 100% cotton.
Note again: If you like the “stiffness” of the fabric as it comes off the bolt, prewash it and then apply a fabric finish product of your own as you press and cut it for the quilt.
This is how I do it. Every time. This process gives me confidence that I won’t have a sad story to tell about fabric bleeding in a quilt that is washed for the first time. No panic stricken attempts to get migrated dye out of a quilt. Prevention is the best method! Now, I’m going back to quilting!
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