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I am very new to quilting and I purchased a charm pack. I know it would not be a good idea to wash it ahead of time, but once I have finished with the quilt and it would need to be washed, in your experience, do charm pack materials bleed onto the white accent fabrics? I want to use white on my quilt as well as the colorful printed charm pack. Thanks for any advice given!
I read on a quilt blog that Dawn dishwashing liquid has a color saver chemical in it. I just make my quilts, wash them in Dawn and dry them and they are good to go! I have made a red/white quilt with no bleeding problems. I never pre-wash, especially a charm pack. Your size would be off if you washed them.
I never prewash anything except flannel and that is for shrinkage. I wash my quilts with some Color Catchers to catch anything that might bleed. You can find them in the laundry aisle of the grocery store.
Most of us do not prewash our precuts, and I'm no exception. So when I first wash a finished quilt made from precuts , if I have ANY question in my mind that any of the fabrics might bleed, I throw in a color catcher. Those things are amazing and haven't let me down yet. :icon_happy:
I don't pre wash anything either and color catchers are my friend. They work so good at catching everything.
I was kind of afraid to wash the rag quilts for the grandkids since there were so many colors, cotton and flannel fabrics in them; none of which were washed first. I threw in a couple of color catchers and they all came out perfect; no bleeding or uneven shrinkage (probably lucked out on that one). I just used the colorcatchers on two lap quilts that I finished; came out great. I never prewash anything anymore, although I may preshrink some of the "not as good" flannels in the future. My luck may run out on those one of these days.
Color Catchers. 2-3. They will trap any loose colors. If the sheets are heavily colored I would wash more than once. Don't dry until you are sure the colors are set. Here is a tip for using them...do not use liquid fabric softener in the wash with the Color Catchers because it diminishes their effectiveness.
Thanks everyone for your replies. I have not yet tried the color catchers and wondered how good they are. I also like auntimern's tip of not using liquid fabric softener because that is what I generally use. I appreciate your responses!!
I pre wash everything. Not only for the color bleeding but for the shrinkage. Yardage shrinks. maybe just alittle but to me a little is enough to mess things up in quilts are so specific. If it shrinks before you make the quilt, then it won't shrink when the quilt is done. I know many like that puckered look that the quilt gets when it shrinks after completion, but I dont like that all the time. Only on certain quilt themes. I pre wash charms and fat quarters.. I put them in a lingerie bag. I do so for the color bleeding, but also... in my experience and from what others have mentioned... charms and cake layers and fq's might be cut the same measurements but when washed, they can shrink up to 1 inch! If something shrinks 1 inch after completion..that is going to cause pucker or even dis-illusion the blocks/pieces of the quilt. Some will shrink others will not and to me, that can cause some problems with the appearance of the quilt. I just recently bought 2 cake layer bundles... 10"x10". I was intending to cut them in to 4, 5x5 squares to make HST's. I pre washed them and of the 5 I chose, 3 shrunk from 1/2-1 inch so now I couldn't cut them into 5x5 squares and get 4 from one cake layer as they shrunk to 9-9/12 inch squares..one even shrunk to 9 horizontally and 9.1/2 vertically. Obviously I couldn't get 4, 5" squares out of those. so basically, they are useless unless I wanted smaller pieces. But my whole reason for buying them was to cut the 10x10 into 4, 5x5's. And if I hadn't pre shrunk them, when the HST's were made and the quilt assembled. that 1/2-1 inch would have shrunk and the HST's would be wonky or have that puckered look...but... only those that shrunk would be wonky or puckered..the rest of the quilt wouldn't be and that'd look stupid to have just parts here and there puckered and some straight and others crooked. So i pre wash everything.
Plus.. those color catchers are rather expensive. So I only use them on deep colors like reds and blues and purples etc.
I also do not pre-wash any of my quilt fabric. There are some sheets called Color Catcher Sheets in the laundry department of most stores. Throw a couple of these in with your new quilt when you wash it and the sheets will attract any dye that migrates.
Quick question here ladies...what is Dawn? Only asking because I have a friend called dawn and I need to know if I have to get her to wash my quilts, lol....joke....but seriously what is dawn?
Someone mentioned using Dawn to wash fabric. The Craftsy class I took on fabric dyeing says to use the blue Dawn to rinse out excess dye at the end. I have been using that. I do not prewash fabric unless it is a red fabric. I use color catchers when I wash the finished quilt.
Dawn is a liquid soap for washing dishes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeannie acton
Dawn is much cheaper than color catchers and I am telling you ladies...it has never failed me!