September 27, 2007

More Fabric


Today I washed and ironed more fabric. It was the blue ones this time. There is still quite a bit of fabric left to be washed. I have been acquiring fabric for my stash but not getting it washed. It had stacked up enough to fill and over flow a laundry basket. I don't think I have made a dent it it yet. I started to do something again that I hadn't done for years and years. I hate the way the fabric frays in the washer. I always feel like what I have paid for is being worn away by the washing process. I have tried the cutting the corner off the fabric to help stop the fraying but that never seemed to help. This time I zig zaged the fabric ends. I used to do that way back when I was making garments. It was nice to be able to pull the newly washed fabric out of the washer and into the dryer without untangling it. It seems like the fabric didn't warp as much. By this I mean when you line up the salvages to fold it the ends meet better. There isn't an inch or more of fabric hanging past the edge. Sometimes when you square up the ends to rotary cut you have to cut over an inch off of one layer to get it to be even. (Am I clear as mud in this description?) There wasn't as much of a problem with that this time. I think it took just as much time to zig zag over the ends as it does to cut the fraying strings off of it when I iron the fabric. I'm sold on this for now! Any other ideas out there as to keeping the fraying down as you wash your fabric?

I have been faithful with putting in some time on the monster the past couple of days. Maybe I will get it out of the living room before DH puts tinsel around the frame legs. My fingers are crossed.

2 comments:

~Bren~ said...

HaHa!! I see how your buddy can wonder about blogging your newly washed fabric! You are right though...any quilter will be thrilled to read this post. I never had any luck with cutting a triangle off the corners of my fat quarters or yardage either. I think the extra time to stitch a line along the cut edges is worth it. Now you HAVE to show how you store all this wonderful stash!!! Char will just have to put up with one more post of "fabric"!! teehee.

Rose said...

I recently started zig-zagging my edges before I wash them too. I'm never going back to snipping corners. This does take some time but it save SOOOO much frustration. Well worth the effort!

I'm enjoying your blog!