Do you wash fabric?

[Tamnymore]

If its Liberty varuna wool that you have @Sewingsue then I would suggest handwashing with a delicate handwash liquid but I think that a wool wash with a liquid wash in the washing machine at a low temp should be fine. It's lovely stuff, keeps its vibrant colour and I've never had a problem with shrinkage.

[toileandtrouble]

For silk and wool, coolish wash and special washing liquid.  Ordinary detergent, even non bio seem a bit too rough on it.  Rinse well.  We had a neighbour that hung out woollies on hangers, dripping wet and they never shrank.  Any sort of rubbing/twisting seems to felt it.

[Bodgeitandscarper]

See my user name?  Bet you can guess if I pre-wash or not? 

Confession - I may have pre-washed the odd bit of denim in the past, but only the odd bit.

[Kwaaked]

Yes and no.

When I prepare it, because it all goes into a large stash, I don't.  But because I've stored it all for a while when I go to use it, I bring it home and wash it.  I also like my fabric to look shiny and new, so I tend to iron it with sizing when I cut the pieces out.

As to washing, I was it the same way I plan on washing it when it's done.

Delicate fabrics get liquid detergent, everything else gets powder.  I may wash things by hand later, but usually I put them in a delicate cycle in mesh bag before it's made into anything.  I dry normal, be it line dry or high....and while I have a very nice dryer with plenty of settings, it never seems to get off hot.  Silk and wools are always line dried, everything else, shrink or not, goes to the dryer.

Cold wash/hot or line dry.  Prepare fabric for use, hang and place in garment bag on rack, swatch card in window. 

Now...if it's poly or something that won't shrink and doesn't have any spots or anything, I wash it when I am done making the garment.  Then I take it back to the studio, iron it with starch or sizing and put it in a garment bag for a month or so.   I buy them on sale or when I need to pad a wholesale order, so I have about 15 of them left right now (I also weirdly, have people wanting to buy them...so I resell a lot of them). 

[sewmuchmore]

The only thing I have washed is some very smelly quilted jersey. But then I never pay a lot for fabric, never more than £9 a metre and then it would have to be very special to pay that, and I have never had anything shrink in the wash after making up. Not even wool.

[Renegade Sewist]

Wash wash wash wash wash.  I sew mostly natural fibers and they shrink like crazy. Linen and rayon get done 2 or 3 times. Linen in hot. Fairly hot dryer.

Liquid suds only the first time, at a reduced rate, then only water. New fabric isn't really dirty but you want to break the surface tension so the water penetrates the fabric. The only time you need to scour fabric is when you are dyeing or overdyeing .

A tip I learned from an old quilter was to trim the corners off before you wash the fabric. Just a half inch or so is fine. It slows down fraying and tells you if stashed fabric is prepped or not.

Since I quilt and use fabrics from different era's and sources I pre-wash after having my first two quilts nearly ruined by a nasty fabric. If I was using all purchased from same line, like Moda at same time I'd not wash. Crispy quilt fabric is nicer to sew and it should all respond the same. Also with quilters people like a different amount of puckering on the finished quilt. Pre washed fabric over cotton batting gives me a look I really like.

[mudcat]

I prewash all wovens however I'm more selective with knits. My knits are generally natural fiber w/lycra and will typically be gentle washed and line dried so I prefer not to prewash because it causes too much curling of the edges.  I have some nylon/lycra to make swimwear and I don't plan to prewash.  However, cotton/lycra may be prewashed if I think it's going in the dryer.  I will prewash any denim/lycra several times because denim seems to shrink a lot.

[SewRuthieSews]

I've had a few bad experiences with lovely garments shrinking the first time they are washed. So now I generally do try and wash most fabrics and then air dry which is how I tend to launder them afterwards.

If something is 100 percent polyester I suppose it probably wouldn't shrink, but then I'm probably not sewing with it in the first place!

[Creative Mummy Bear]

I wash all fabrics that will eventually be washed. If they are small pieces, for a top maybe, I will often soak in a bowl for ten minutes or so and then spin them. Larger pieces go in the washing machine at 30 or 40 degrees. I may use a tiny bit of powder if I feel the fabric needs freshening up (if it’s come from a factory shop, for example).

I also wash things like curtain linings (for shrinkage) and I’ll sometimes hover a steamy iron over cotton trimmings to remove excess shrinkage so the Roman blind or whatever doesn’t go All Twisty (that’s the technical term  ) when it’s first washed.

[BrendaP]

I don't usually bother with P&Q fabric, though I do wash cotton wadding.

For anything that's going to be a garment I wash it as I would the finished item, which almost invariably means putting it into the washing machine.  I can't remember the last time I made something which would need dry cleaning

I overlock the cut ends first and that is my way of identifying that it has been pre-washed and is ready for use.

[jintie]

I sometimes cut a square (say 5cm by 5cm), pour boiling water on it, squeeze it in a towel then iron it dry. Then I check for shrinkage and change of how it handles. (Not advisable for synthetics!). I mostly use natural fabrics, linens and cottons, and in the summer will wash the whole lot first (after overlocking).  This takes out (most!) of the shrinkage.

[Popeye09]

To me, it seems like such a small effort to prewash it that it would be silly not to!

As well as any shrinkage issues, if the fabric was folded or squashed or whatever (say it came through the post) then by washing, drying and ironing it seems to make laying out and cutting easier because you've relaxed it and removed any strains that were in the fabric more throughly than if you just ran the steam iron over it.

[Lyn-J]

Everything
Out of the bag into the washing machine!

[Nevis5]

I prewash most fabrics, wouldn't probably bother with wool coatings or heavy wools which will probably be shrunk as I sew or dry cleaned later.  Also I'm with @mudcat , I rarely prewash knits as some of them turn into wriggly messes.  I don't believe I've ever had a knit fabric shrink. Or come to that, I don't think I've ever shrunk anything I've sewn.  (unless I've grown out of it, ahem, which is another story).

[Clareew]

I prewash everything apart from fleece.  I had an expensive knit jersey from Paris that shrunk from 100cm to 75cm.  I also once made a wonderful top without prewashing and once I had washed it, it was too smal to wear.