Do you wash fabric?

[SewRuthieSews]

I've had lots of knits shrink (viscose based) and now i do wash all the knits too.

In early June I made this top.

 (original top, looks lovely doesn't it, but a problem is lurking)
I wore it once and washed it.
It shrank. A lot. It was now only waist length and completely unwearable. I had clearly not prewashed the fabric, and had NOT (on this occasion) got away with it.
Here it is comapared to the original pattern piece.

 (eek look how much it shrank)
I hung it on a hanger in the sewing room for 'fixing' and put the spare yardage through the wash to shrink that as well. It sat there for a while but was bugging me!

 (Front with seam above bust)
The spare yardage was limited so I could not cut the whole top again. So I did the following:-
Cut a new lower front and lower back from the yardage, cut the top off under the arms, curved up at the front and flat at the back and sewed these in place. (I didn't want a seam at the tummy as I didn't want emphasis there, hence why I cut off so high up).
Cut a new pair of sleeves, one from the old lower front and the other front the scraps of remaining fabric. Cut new armholes (so they are less dropped now) and inserted the new sleeves.
Sewed it all back up.

I have some small scraps left but nothing large enough for a garment piece. I have some other fabrics prewashing now so this doesn't happen again!!!

Hopefully my reworked top looks deliberate rather than I just added stuff on when it shrank. It was as much work as making the top in the first place, but at least I got to salvage the lovely fabric.

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I bought the fabric for this top the previous year from the Monday Market Man. He has a stall of lovely fabrics at very reasonable prices on the open air market on a Monday.
I'm not sure if he's still there as I've not been able to get out to see him for a long time. I'm also trying to sew from stash as much as I can.
He mostly doesn't label his fabrics but from feel this one had plenty of something soft and natural - cotton/viscose. It did have a very elasticated selvedge which made cutting out a challenge so maybe this should've been a clue? Anyway I am prewashing as much as possible now!

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edited to add I did this in July, but thought it was relevant to the discussion so dug the photos out to share.

[Ohsewsimple]

@SewRuthieSews would you say the selvedges of the knit was tight compared to the rest of the fabric?  You feel like you want to stretch it out?  If this is the case then I clip into the selvedge every 10 cms or so.  It just lets it open up and relax making it easier to cut.

[BrendaP]

@SewRuthieSews  you have made a great job resuing that, but it's amazing how much it shrank.

[SewRuthieSews]

@Ohsewsimple yes the selvedge was really elasticated, I think I sort of stretched it out with pins to originally cut it out.
@BrendaP yes probably about 25% shrinkage, I was horrified. Because it has a curved hem it was really obvious how wrong it was. That was a single wash at 40 degrees C.

(I did this in July btw but included the pictures now as thought it related to the discussion)
http://ruthieksews1.blogspot.com/2018/07/shrunken-top-rework.html

[Sewingsue]

Wow @SewRuthieSews that is a scary amount of shrinkage.
If I ever wondered why so many people prewashed the advice on here and your pics have converted me.

[Renegade Sewist]

@SewRuthieSews  thanks for sharing this stellar example of bad shrinkage and an excellent save!

Two things contribute to the problem that are often over looked. One is residual shrinkage that continues over some to many washings for certain fabrics. Another is the manufacturing process itself. On the looms the threads go through a lot of tension, especially the warp threads. That's the lengthwise ones (you knew that). Part of what we view as shrinkage is the threads relaxing from the stretching and other torture they went through on the looms.

I found a great article that's an industry piece discussing various finishes and labeling related to the whole shrink problem. About half way down there is an excellent chart that breaks down the amount of shrink from the greige goods stage. Very interesting.

[Catllar]

Wow SRS that's serious shrinkage and a great save my girl!