tricks for de-twisting jersey?

[sewingj]

I`ve now got some 100% cotton jersey to make a nightie and was about to cut it out but am having major problems because the fabric isn`t square.  I need to  cut out the back piece on the fold and it`s taken ages to fold the fabric without major wrinkles -  and now the whole thing is skewiff.
The fabric has also shrunk quite a bit widthwise so I don`t have much spare to play with
I must own up and say I haven`t ironed it since I washed it - would that help?

I`m getting rather fed up working with jersey as I seem to spend so much time on the cutting out just getting the fabric straight!

[BrendaP]

Twisting seems to be the inherant nature of some jersey fabrics, particularly with the single jerseys.  I think it's probably down to the way the fabric is knitted and one side of each stich is minutely smaller than the other side of the stitch, nothing in itself but thousands of stitches add up.  We all know what RTW tee shirts can be like.

Pre-washing should release any superficial tensions, but after that I think that you will probably get better results if you fold the fabric lengthways on grain, in line with the vertical columns of stitches and let the rows do their own thing.  Of course if it's a striped fabric you have to go with the stripes.  Pressing and agressively forcing it into square won't work, it will just twist back again as soon as it's washed.

[WendyW]

Wash and work with what you get. I wouldn't even attempt to find a "grain" line of stitches. Just fold it so the fold lays nice and ignore what could be a very wonky grainline. Many knits are knitted in the round, not back and forth, and they get really skewed.

I have one t-shirt that the fabric was a tie-dyeish design that made straight rows horizontally and vertically. After washing it was so skewed that it would have looked ridiculous had I tried to make either the horizontal or vertical appear straight. After some stewing over it, I cut the t-shirt so that both directions went diagonal, and were evenly slanted in a V. Still one of my favorite shirts. Knits can be very forgiving, and grain is not as big a factor as the print can be.

[Greybird]

It's the same problem you get with some cotton T-shirts where the side seams are twisted and no amount of of pressing will make them go straight. Machine knitting with some industrial yarns produces the same phenomenon. I was told once that it has to do with the amount of twist in the yarn. The cheaper short staples of yarn have to have a "harder" twist in order to give the yarn the necessary strength to be knitted.

If the cotton staples are run together with an acrylic or polyester yarn this effect is lessened or overcome.

[Ploshkin]

I've just had this very issue with one of my pieces of French Terry.  It made it appear to be badly cut off the bolt.  I folded it in half and flapped and wiggled it around on the table until it lost its wrinkles and was lying flat as it wanted to naturally.  The cut ends were about 4" off what you would have thought was the straight.