To Prewash or Not: Pick One on Purpose
Grain's out of the way. Now the other question everybody asks me, usually while standing in the fabric store with a bolt in their hands: do I wash this first or not?
Here's my answer. I prewash. Every time. Not because there's one right answer, but for two reasons: shrinkage and our water.
Why I do it
Cotton shrinks the first time it gets wet. Not a ton, usually a few percent. But piece a quilt out of unwashed fabric, then wash the finished thing, and every piece shrinks a little differently depending on how it was woven and dyed. You get puckering along your seams. Not the end of the world. Some people like that puckered look on purpose, call it quilting-as-you-go crinkle or whatever term you want. But if you didn't choose it, it'll just bug you.
The other reason is our water. It's hard up here, lots of mineral content, and I've had colors come out blotchy when I dye or wash fabric without accounting for it. If a fabric's going to bleed or react weird, I want to find out now, on a scrap, not after six hours of piecing a top.
So I prewash. Toss it in the washer on a gentle cycle, no fancy detergent needed, dry it, press it flat before I cut anything.
Why some people don't
Some quilters skip it on purpose. That's a real, legitimate choice, not laziness. Reasons people give me:
- Sizing. New fabric off the bolt has sizing in it, a light starch-like finish, that makes it crisper and easier to cut accurately. Wash it out and the fabric goes softer and can shift more under your rotary cutter.
- They want that crinkled look after the first wash of the finished quilt. Old quilts get that soft, puckered texture, and some people chase it on purpose.
- They're using fabrics they know are stable. A lot of quality quilting cotton is preshrunk at the factory, so the shrinkage is minimal anyway.
All fine reasons. What's not fine is doing it randomly. Prewashing half your fabrics and not the others bakes uneven shrinkage right into your project, the exact problem prewashing is supposed to solve. Pick a lane and stay in it for the whole project.
How to prewash, if you're going to
- Snip the selvage edges a little so they don't fray into a tangled mess in the wash.
- Wash on gentle, cool or warm water, mild detergent.
- Dry on low, or line dry if you've got a mudroom or garage rack. High heat can be rougher on the fabric than it needs to be.
- Press it flat before you do anything else. Don't skip this. Fabric out of the dryer is never as flat as you think, and you'll be cutting off grain again if you go straight to the mat.
A quick word on needles
Bit of a tangent, but it belongs here, because it's the same lesson. When I started hand quilting I used whatever needle I had lying around, which happened to be too long for the work. My stitches came out huge and crooked, like a kid's handwriting. I didn't know that was the problem. I just thought I was bad at this. Bought a pack of betweens, size 9, the next week because someone finally told me. Night and day. Same hands, same fabric, totally different result.
I bring it up because prewashing is the same kind of decision. Nobody sat me down and said pick a system and stick with it, and I found out the hard way what happens when you don't. Save yourself the trouble. Decide now, before you cut a single square, whether you're prewashing this project or not. Then don't relitigate it halfway through.
What I'd tell a beginner
First project? Lean toward prewashing, mostly so you don't get surprised later. One extra step at the start instead of a puckery surprise at the end. But if you've got a reason to skip it, stable fabric, or you want that vintage crinkle, that's a real choice too. Just make it on purpose, write it down if you're the spreadsheet type like me, and apply it to every piece of fabric in that project.
Before next time
Decide, right now, whether you're prewashing this project's fabric or not. If yes, get it in the wash before our next session so it's dry and pressed by the time we cut.