I grew up in a house where Mama made all my clothes and I remember her explanations of why the dye had to be "set" in cold salt water. She also told me about pre-shrinking new fabric so that the garment wouldn't shrink after it was made and washed. She always did the cold salt water soak in a sink and wrung them out by hand. This doubled as preshrinking.
I have started numerous projects and just don't want to stand in front of the kitchen sink to do all the different colors of fabric. I am running each piece in the washer with a small load, cold water setting. I put 1/2 cup salt in it.
While these loads are running I will stay stitch around the edges of the large pieces of double sided quilting to prevent the batting from coming out around the edges. I will then throw them in one color at a time in cold salt water to wash.
By Marty Dick from Knoxville, TN
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Well, ok, but I think most cloth is pre-shrunk & dye set these days. I'm sure not all, but most? Is it really necessary? I wish I knew. I only sew once in awhile.
For "Jazzyme"
I try to shrink everything I make, including the zippers, seam binding, or inner facings - just everything that I use, I've learned the hard way that to miss something can make all the time spent carefully making the item, wasted! And you have to throw away the project! Not fun! Treat everything as it might be treated in the future.
Mama always reminded me of the place in the New Testament where the Lord Jesus admonished folks to avoid sewing unshrunk cloth to that which had been shrunk. It's worth the extra time and effort not to lose all that work. Thanks for the interest.
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