[ Ссылка ] Martha helps the beginner to know when to hand wash your fabrics vs. machine washing them.
Let's discuss fabric and what shapes and forms you can buy it in. Here's a bolt of fabric and you'll see many of these in a fabric shop. A long piece of fabric is rolled onto a bolt. You buy fabric by the yard.
First we need to prewash the fabric. Some quilters are very strict about prewashing all their fabrics.
Prewashing firstly washes away the chemicals used in making the fabric and secondly it sets the colors of the fabric. I pretty much only prewash if I'm using dark fabrics with lights, then I'll prewash my darks, so they don't bleed into my light fabric, or if I'm using reds or blacks, or bright yellows, blues, purples etc... Any color that you think might bleed into each other or a lighter color.
So, to be safe, it is good to prewash your fabrics. Wash fabrics and wash like colors together in warm water. If you mix any different colors in your washing, make sure you don't let them sit wet in your washer. They will bleed into each other. Take them out immediately after finished washing and place in your dryer.
Iron prewashed fabric
Then iron your pieces like they were before, with selvage meeting selvage and wrong side facing wrong side. Many quilters also use a good spray starch like Mary Ellen's, to help stiffen the fabric to make more even squares.
I tried it the other day and couldn't tell a difference in stiffness, so it's up to you. I've heard of many quilters who really like to use it.
Martha can finish hand quilting your unfinished quilt top. Check out Martha's local business website at:
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