Should You Pre-Wash
Your Quilting Fabric?

To tell you the truth, I had not really thought much about the question prior to a few months ago. Long ago, I took a quilting class, and the teacher told us to arrive at class with our fabric already washed and ready to cut.

When we arrived for the class, she explained that quilters always pre-wash their fabric – for many reasons:

1) To remove all of the sizing (chemicals) the manufacturers add to the fabric to make look more attractive, prevent wrinkles, and make it come off the bolt easier in the store. Although it makes the fabric easier for them to handle, sizing makes the fabric a little stiffer and more difficult for quilters to handle; plus it may leave a residue on your needles and thread as you are sewing.

2) Fabric with a high cotton content will shrink – even if it says it is pre-shrunk. (We all know about the pre-shrunk jeans that don’t fit any more after one washing! Eeek!) Since not all cottons are born ‘equal,’ they don’t shrink ‘equal’ either. That means that some cotton fabric will shrink 1%, other cotton fabric will shrink 3% or possibly more. The result is that once your quilt is washed, the fabrics will exert their own shrinking personality, and you will have a quilt that has puckers – and some patches will pucker more than others.

3) The color bleeds out of some fabric; and may deposit itself into other fabric. Reds, blues, yellows and purples are famous for sharing their beauty with whites, muslins, and tans. Translation – the beautiful, bright white in your quilt may end up with a pink, blue, yellow or lavender haze, if the excess color is not removed from the colored fabric.

4) Many people are allergic to the dyes and sizing in new fabrics.  It causes all kinds of reactions that most times go "undiagnosed" in fabric shoppers.  The sypmtoms can be anything from itchy/burning/tearing eyes, sneezing all the way to wheezing.

I wasn’t surprised when the beginning quilter asked the question in an on-line quilt discussion group about whether to pre-wash the fabric, and I wasn’t surprised to see that several quilters answered with all of the above reasons.

I was surprised, however, at the quilter who responded that she never pre-washed her fabrics because she liked the puckered look.

I understand completely liking the puckered look; I love it! It makes a quilt look well-loved and handmade.

And I am always happy when my quilts develop that look, whether it is the first time they are washed or after several years. I would do almost anything to make sure that my quilts (although maybe not my wallhangings) could have that look of love. I just wish I could figure out a way to get the sizing and excess color out of the fabric without washing it before I sew.

While this may seem like a tame discussion, apparently some quilters have very strong feelings about pre-washing their fabric.

During our Eavesdrop on a Telephone Conversation interviews, often I ask professional quilters whether they pre-wash their fabric or not. One quilter laughed and remarked that she had been witness to some very heated discussions about that very topic.

The points seem to be the same in every discussion. It seems that there is no particular agreement about which is best. Frankly, I think it is the same as many other topics in quilting - it's up to you and your preference.

Here are a few considerations:

• If you are making a wall hanging that will not be washed, you might be better off not pre-washing your fabric. It will retain the stiffness and look very crisp as it hangs. In addition, often the stiffer fabric will retain its shape better as you sew it together.
• If your quilt will be washed often and you want it to look brand new when you give it to the person, or as you place it on your bed or couch - you'll want to wash the fabric to be sure that the fabric won't shrink; especially shrink at different rates
• If this is a baby quilt and will actually be used by a baby, you'll want to wash it and get out all of the chemicals used in the manufacturing of the fabric. You could wash the quilt when it is finished instead (or in addition to pre-washing the fabric).
• If you think any of the fabric will bleed, wash it for sure!

Avoid having your fabric bleed and ruin its next door neighbor by pre-washing at least the fabric you think will bleed.	This is the kind of shrinkage you can expect when you don't pre-wash your fabric and it shrinks a "normal" amount.