An Ingenious Way to Wash Pre-Cuts
Remove Excess Dye With No Raveling or Distortion!
Many quilters and quilting experts advise against washing pre-cuts. Those cut edges can turn into a raveled mess and smaller cuts tend to distort.
But, what if you just bought a package of deep reds? Red dye is notorious for bleeding. Pre-washing fabric is a good way to remove much of the excess dye and to keep the fabric from bleeding into other sections of a quilt.
Fortunately, Laura from Sew Very Easy has developed a method for washing fat quarters and pre-cuts without raveling and distortion. As it turns out, it’s not the washing itself that causes problems but how the fabric is handled.
Watch the following video to learn her method. Once dried and ironed, pre-cuts look brand new, like the laundered pre-cuts in the photo at the top of this page.
Click here to watch the video at YouTube if it doesn’t play on your device.
A simple salad spinner, like this one, is all you need.
Brilliant!! Kicking myself for giving away my salad spinner a couple of yrs ago due to little use and limited kitchen storage space. Will be on the lookout for a replacement, maybe even a thrift store or estate / garage sale find.
What did you use for detergent?
I don’t believe Laura said what she uses but any mild dish or laundry detergent will work. Just use a tiny amount.
Brilliant! I was concerned about a charm pack that was given to me. I will try this!
very ingenious –love it.
Just learned to use the salad spinner for my yarn. Now my fabric too
This is the best advice, and I have ever gotten. I do this to all my precuts now. Works like a charm….LOL
It works but is very time consuming. I just put precuts in mesh laundry bags and wash and dry. Works great and I can do other things while they are in wash and dryer.
I iron mine dry, crisps the fabric nicely