ZJ Humbach

Quilter's Guide to Preshrinking

ZJ Humbach

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Duration:   6  mins

Description

Preshrinking cotton fabric prior to cutting and piecing it into a quilt is a commonly debated topic among quilters. Ultimately, whether to prewash your fabric or not just comes down to personal preference, but if you like to prewash your fabric, ZJ Humbach shares her quilter’s guide for doing so.

Cotton Fabric

Depending on the cotton fabric you are using for your quilt, it can shrink up to as much as three percent when washed. ZJ explains that this means that if you have a quilt that is supposed to finish at 100 inches, after it is washed it could shrink to as small as 97 inches. She also explains how this can cause issues if your pieced quilt top and backing fabric do not shrink at the same rate.

Whether you decide to prewash your cotton fabric or not prior to using it, ZJ recommends that you stay consistent. This means that if you wash the fabric for the quilt top you need to wash the fabric for the backing. While cutting down on the amount a quilt may shrink once washed is one of the reasons for prewashing fabric, ZJ explains that it is not the only one. She talks about how prewashing fabric can also ensure that fabric colors do not bleed once the finished quilt is washed. ZJ shares more quilting tips when it comes to deciding whether to prewash or not, including how to test a small swatch of fabric for colorfastness before using it. While quilt tops are generally made from yardage of quilting cotton, they can be made from other cuts and fabrics as well.

ZJ shares several tips for working with different fabrics in a quilt including flannel fabric and precut quilting fabric. She explains why different fabrics may need to be treated differently prior to using them and how to handle prewashing or not prewashing precut quilting fabric.

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7 Responses to “Quilter's Guide to Preshrinking”

  1. Stephaney Thomas

    What about fat quarters? I'm making a nine patch with flannel and purchased a stack of fat quarters. If I preshrink, do you recommend I pink the the edges to reduce fraying?

  2. Carol Ann Kitchell Maurer

    My point of view is different than the video on NOT pre-shrinking precuts. On the contrary, if you preshrink yardage then why not Precuts too? Especially if you are adding them to a quilt with washed yardage...each fabric then, will shrink differently under the iron causing wonkiness within the block. I agree you should never put precuts in the washer, yes it's a disaster, but in my experience and opinion, each precut piece should be separately "dunked" by hand into a tepid soap bath, rinsed in cool water and laid out onto a white paper towel to check for bleeding and shrinkage greater than 1/4". Christmas precuts are notorious for bleeding and shrinkage, not so much crocking. So yes, prewash your precuts, by hand--each step that does take time quilting-especially washing precuts insures a quilt than can be washed without fear of bleeding.

  3. Sheela

    When do you preshrink and when do you spray starch? I usually spray starch all my materials before I cut them. and only preshrink/ wash those that are very dark in colour or that are batiks which I know will run its colours. I had several of Hoffman's Batiks darks with this issue but not the prints. I ended up washing several times and also using colour catcher.

  4. Linda P

    I have made a quilt top with pre cuts that I did not preshrunk. I want to use flannel for the back. Should the flannel be preshrunk? It is yardage off the bolt.

  5. Susan

    I long for the good old days when I could buy cotton that was garenteed not to shrink and many were garenteed color fast. I'm sure it is better today and I'm just an old fool or my memory is shot.

  6. Patty Woodham

    What if you are using other non precut fabrics with your precuts? Do you preshrink the nonprecut fabrics (sashing, borders, backing) to use with precuts you did not preshrink?

  7. Linda Parks

    I preshrink prexuts in a pan of hot water then in bag in dryer or hang to dry. A little Ravel if not careful but I like to preshrink all fabrics.

To preshrink or not to preshrink? That's the question and it's one that quilters debate world wide. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. Quilts are primarily made from 100% cotton fabric and cotton will typically shrink up to 3%. That means if you've made a quilt that finishes at 100 inches, there's a possibility that after you wash it it could shrink down to as much as, or as little, I should say, as little as 97 inches you're going to lose three inches on that quilt. If you haven't allowed for that on a bed quilt all of a sudden your quilt isn't long enough to cover the sides of the bed. So you may need to either make your quilt longer to begin with, or you may wanna preshrink it first so that there will be little to no further shrinkage. There will always be some shrinkage with a quilt because the batting shrinks. So you want to, if you're going to pre shrink your quilt look for a batting that has around 1% shrinkage and you will still get a little of that crinkly look, but not as drastic. I primarily tell people if you preshrink one component preshrink them all. So if you shrink your backing make sure you're shrinking your front fabrics. By doing that you will keep the pristine look of your quilt and it will have that more finished look, first finished look, I should say where the fabrics are not as crinkly if everything's been preshrunk. With today's fabrics, you don't have to worry so much about bleeding of the fabrics in the wash or the cracking of the fabric. Sometimes you may have a difficulty with a very deep color like black, blue even a deep burgundy. A test that you can do is take a piece of white fabric, rub it over your dark fabric. If any dye comes off, then you may want to go ahead and preshrink it for color fastness. Another test is to cut a square of fabric. Oh, just, you know, a couple of inches and put it in hot water. If the dye comes out, then you know that you're going to have problems with that dye bleeding onto your finished product. So you would want to preshrink that and make sure all the dye's out. I have not found that problem with most commercial fabrics but sometimes with hand dyed fabrics if you have not thoroughly rinsed them, you will have problems. I had a problem with the customer quilt one time where I sprayed just a little bit of a cold water on it to take care of the needle marks from the needle where I had to unsew a portion and by spraying a little bit of cold water on it it usually literally makes the fibers come back together. And she had not gotten all of the dye out of her hand dyed fabric and it started to bleed over onto the white fabric. Needless to say it was not a good situation. And we had to do some work to get the quilt looking back like it was when, when I first got it. But be aware of those exceptions to the rule. Now, if you don't preshrink your fabric, and then after the quilt is made, it gets washed over and over such as this sweet little baby quilt you can see how it gets that wonderful old fashioned look. It gets that soft quilted feel and the more it gets washed the more it shrinks and the more, it just, oh it just feels wonderful. So if you want that true quilt feel don't preshrink your fabrics, let the washer do its magic once the quilt is finished. Now there are exceptions to every rule. And so I will give you a couple more guidelines when it comes to flannel. I recommend preshrinking it that's because flannel is very, very linty. And also, as you can see here, flannel ravels. And so, you don't wanna get all that lint in your sewing machine and flannel will definitely shrink. So, I think it's better if you go ahead and preshrink flannel. Again, another exception to the rule. When, I was stationed in the South I learned this wonderful word called pens on. And when somebody says, you know should you preshrink your fabric? I say, pens on, it just pens on whatever you're going to be doing and what you're working with. So, the general rule of thumb is it's quilters preference. The one rule of thumb that is an absolute no-no is if you are working with pre-cuts, any kind of pre-cuts whether they're term squares layer cakes, jelly rolls do not preshrink these, you will have a disaster in your washer especially the jelly rolls. These are long strips that are two and a half inches by 42 inches long. And they get wrapped around each other. They get tied, they get knotted and they will ravel even more than what they already are. And you will lose your true two and a half inch width, and definitely lose the crispness. The same with the pre-cut charm packs layer cakes. Even though they have the pinked edges they're going to ravel. And especially, again, if it's a flannel one even though it's flannel and I said to preshrink it you don't want to do it with your pre cuts. So I'm sure the argument will rage on even with my guidelines, but at least it will give you a little more information before you decide, should you preshrink or not?

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