A few weeks ago I wrote to you about how to wash clothing, including tips on how often to wash and how to treat your clothing so it will last a long time. This time I thought we’d talk specifically about pre-washing fabric and how to treat each type of fiber. You’ve asked a lot of questions about this topic, so I’m putting it all together in one place.
Why is Pre-Washing Important?
There are a few reasons why it’s important to pre-wash your fabrics. The simplest and more important answer is that many fabrics shrink when washed, particularly in the first washing. (A few fabrics–flannel and interlock come to mind–may continue to shrink a little bit after the first wash). So the first wash is critical, especially since most fabrics will shrink more in length than in width. There’s nothing worse than making something that fits only to discover it’s several inches shorter after it gets washed!
It’s also a good idea to pre-wash fabrics to remove any extra dyes and chemicals that have been used in the making and finishing of the fabrics. After all, you probably don’t want to be handling chemicals if it’s not absolutely necessary, right? And if there’s extra dye in your fabric, it’s better to remove it before it bleeds onto other fabrics. Otherwise, that white collar on your red dress might turn pink! (You can read all about chemicals in textile finishing here and here.)
Which Fabrics Should be Pre-Washed?
Here’s one of the dirty secrets of the apparel industry: sometimes it’s just easier for a manufacturer to tell you to dry clean something when, in truth, the textile itself might have been washable. The reason? Any fabric labeling should be backed up by textile testing, which can be expensive and time consuming. This means that often a manufacturer will take a short cut and label the fabric “Dry Clean Only.” Of course, when this is the case the manufacturer will also not have accounted for shrinkage that would occur if you actually wash the garment, so in many cases you really shouldn’t wash it. So once again, the advantage of sewing is that you can pre-wash your fabrics and render the garment washable so you can avoid dry cleaning chemicals and cost.
When don’t you need to pre-wash a fabric? If you’re absolutely certain that you’ll only dry clean the finished item, you can skip pre-washing. For example, if you’re working with leather, suede, or fur (fake or real) you can probably skip pre-washing. Also, if you’re making something that involves lots of interfacings, trims, or tailoring details (I’m thinking specifically of evening wear and suits), it might be better to reserve the finished garment for dry cleaning. However, in many cases you can still pre-wash the fabrics themselves, so you’ll have to use your own judgement here. I’ll try to give you some general guidelines to help you out.
When Should You Pre-Wash?
As a rule, I pre-wash everything when it comes home with me, before it goes into my stash or sewing room. This way I don’t forget to wash it! When it comes home, it goes directly into the laundry.
How Should You Pre-Wash?
Here are a few general guidelines to help you get started. In general, you want to wash according to the fiber rather than the type of fabric (see below). So, for example, we’ll talk about cotton rather than voile or corduroy. The fiber is the important part here, OK?
Also, when I pre-wash a fabric I prefer to treat it a little worse than I’ll treat the finished garment. In other words, even if I’m not planning to throw a T-shirt in the dryer, I might machine dry the fabric just to force as much shrinkage from it as possible. That way I don’t need to worry about the possibility that it might accidentally go through the dryer later (I’m not the only one who does laundry in our house) and hopefully by treating it harshly the first time it won’t do any more shrinking later.
If you think your fabric might bleed or release a lot of dye (you can check this in advance by pressing a wet piece of white fabric against it for a minute to see if any color transfers to the white), consider throwing a Color Catcher into the wash with your fabric.
Here are a couple of other products you might be interested in if you’re not already familiar with them. I like to keep them in the cabinet with the laundry soap so they’re available when I need them: Synthrapol and Retayne. (You can read all about them via the links.) With some fibers I also add white vinegar to a pre-soak to stop the dyes from leaching out of the fabric, but you’ll probably have better luck with the professional products. (White vinegar is great for removing any excess soap from your wash cycle, and it will also soften your towels so you don’t need to use fabric softener.)
Pre-Washing, Fiber by Fiber
Here’s a short list of how I pre-wash each fiber. Again, this is my personal preference; I don’t use a dryer very much for laundry, so keep that in mind in case you live in a climate where a dryer is necessary. Also, if you’d like to read more about the qualities of each fiber, here are some older blog posts that might help you learn about natural fibers and manufactured fibers.
- Cotton: Most cotton is easy to care for and can be machine washed and dried without too much concern. After pre-washing and drying, I prefer to line dry anything made from cotton after giving it a good shake. (Think of snapping a towel.) This removes most of the wrinkles and helps the fibers to look better and last longer.
- Linen: Linen can be machine washed, no problem. If you put linen in the dryer the fibers will break down more quickly and the fabric will be more wrinkled. However, for pre-washing, I might throw linen in the dryer once just to shrink it up as much as possible. If you use the dryer, keep a spray bottle of water handy to help dampen the fabric when you iron it.
- Wool: I nearly always hand- or machine-wash wool on the gentle setting, using cool water so the fibers don’t felt. Wool should always be line dried, then pressed with lots of steam to shrink up the fabric a bit before cutting. I pre-wash wool this way even if I plan to hand wash or dry clean the finished garment, and I have never had any trouble with it at all. Just be sure to choose the gentle cycle (or hand wash so you’re not agitating the fibers too much) and use cool water.
- Silk: My personal preference is to pre-wash silk by hand with a color-safe shampoo (shampoo for colored hair) or gentle soap (like Soak), then line dry. This is how I care for silk once it’s been sewn, too. Dry cleaning is best if you want to maintain the stiffer hand and sheen of dupioni or shantung, but for fabrics like charmeuse and organza I find hand washing is just fine.
- Viscose (Rayon): This fabric shrinks quite a bit when washed, but rather than putting it in the dryer to shrink it further I almost always line dry it because it wrinkles a lot and should only be pressed with a warmish (not hot) iron so it doesn’t melt. If you do use the dryer, use a low setting and try to remove the fabric before it’s completely dried.
- Acetate, acrylic, nylon, and polyester: I machine wash and line dry these fibers as well. If you use the dryer, keep it on a low setting and remove the fabric before it is completely dry. This will help to reduce static, too. Be especially gentle with acetate because it’s fragile when wet.
- Lyocell (or Tencel): I prefer to machine wash and line dry this fabric as well, although you probably could put it in the dryer.
I hope these tips help you with pre-washing your fabric and caring for your sewing once it’s finished! Please feel free to add your tips in the comments.
Thanks Liesl! Someone recently gave me a beautiful piece of silk fabric and I was unsure how to care for it.
Do you pre-wash your interfacings? Do those shrink?
I have used pre-quilted cotton fabric before for various projects and pre-washed it in my washing machine. Unfortunately, washing machines made after about 1976 have no lint filter. All the lint stopped up my drain pipe from my machine. Some years would pass, I had a different machine and house, but the same problem. The last time the plumber didn’t completely fix the problem the first time, and I had to replace a wall and my dining room floor. I wanted a new floor, so it could have been worse. I now tell all my beginning sewing students to pre-wash pre-quilted fabric in their tub.
You can buy these mesh type of sock that you attach to your drain hose.
This captures a lot of line and junk and, prevents drain clogging.
I have even used old knee high stockings for this as well.
Thank you so much for this! I have 3 cuts of wool that I have been avoiding, because I didn’t quite know how to pre-wash them. Very excited to use this information!
Try and hang your silk out of the breeze, inside is best, it will dry smoother.
I often serge the cut ends of my fabric before washing to avoid fraying and a tangle of threads.
Yes! (And damage to your washing machine, don’t ask me how I know)…
I found that an easy way to treat fabric before washing is to simply paint the rough edges with Mod Podge. I used a half inch brush and when it came out, it hadn’t shred a bit.
Thank you – this is wonderful information! Just wondering if anyone has experience with velveteen. I have some cotton velveteen that I would like to use to make a child’s cape, but am not sure what to do with it. Hopefully it wouldn’t need to be washed often, but since it is for a child, you never know…
I pre-washed my velveteen in cool water and hung to dry. I then machine washed on gentle in cool after I made my girls some dresses when they were little. They were special occasion dresses worn to a wedding and church. I only washed them when dirty to avoid wear. I washed them separately since they were red and bleed. I still have them. Hopefully, some grand daughters will wear them one day.
Great post! I know they say to prewash fabric, but you make a good point, that if you do it as soon as you get back from the store, you won’t ever forget to do it before attempting a project, and it will be ready to sew with when you are ready to work up something. Pinned to my Useful Sewing board. As a beginner sewer, I can use all the tips one can give.
I have recently purchased fabric that needs to be (according to everything that I have read) be pre-dry cleaned. I make one of a kind pieces. I have called several dry cleaners to see about getting yards of fabric dry cleaned and they all speak to me like im crazy. It is more than apparent that this is not common practice. My question is does anyone have first hand experience in not pre dry cleaning fabric and then making a garment to have it be ruined later from a first dry cleaning. OR— is this just something that someone suggested and everyone has jumped on the band wagon without any experience.
This question is for first hand experience only and with dry clean only garments and fabrics.
Thank you for covering prewash faberics.
I have been doing this for years.
I prefer to do this not only to preshrunk the faberic but, also like you said about the fabric bleeding into other materials.
I make doll clothes and, faberic bleeding is important for this as the over dying process in the materials can damage thi Dolls body and, the stains are very difficult to get out.
As for the cut enda raveling I prefer that my cotton, velvets and woven faberic be torn and, not cut.
To tear the material Just nip the selvage and, then rip your matererial this will create a straight even edge.
This will give the straight edge and, Minaj freying with wovens.
I have brought faberic from a National chain they refused to tear wovens and this can short change your yardage when you need to have straight edges all around.
Quilters prefer to have their materials torn.
Also washing gets all the awful chemicals out and, you also can see the quality of the fabric after the wash.
I especially like to wash knitted fabric in hot water and toss into the dryer for shrinkage and, if you also notice knits tend to twist as well.
Note :
if you use fabric softener when washing iron on interfacing will not fuse to your materials as the fabric softeners will leave a residue on your material.
Does anyone skip the spin cycle when pre-washing? I just pre-washed several yards of a yarn dyed cotton, and it twisted up so much! Even after ironing, the wrinkles are still there. Any tips to avoid the twisting up of yardage?
When it twists like that it’s sometimes a good idea to toss it into the dryer for just a few minutes on a low heat. That will help to eliminate some of the wrinkles before you hang it to dry.
I’ve been using mesh laundry bags to put my fabric in for the pre-wash and it works great…a lot less fraying happening.
I would like to use beautiful hand-stamped Italian wool as a contrast fabric in a denim shirt. I was planning to pre-treat the wool fabric the same way as the denim, warm water wash and dryer. This shirt will be worn and washed in regular rotation, possibly in laundromats, not babied at all. But it feels counter-intuitive (reckless??) to treat the wool this way. Thoughts or suggestions?
Thanks,
Kathy
With wool you’re going to have to be really careful because it felts so easily. Can’t be washed in hot water or dried with heat. Agitation and heat will shrink and felt it. So that may not be your best option if you’re not planning to hand wash and line dry it.
I got crazy and did not prewash some flannel. I have already cut the pieces for lining in a cape. I presume the flannel is cotton blend but all in all I will only be dry cleaning garment. Can I sew the flannel lining together and then prewash? or should I just go back to the fabric store and see if I can find the same fabric and prewash?
I have some 100% linen knit that is going to be made into t-shirts. Intend to prewash at 40°C/104°F with vinegar in the final rinse. Would you also recommend putting it in the dryer just the once as well or might it shrink quite a lot being a knit?
Why would a fabric say do not prewash? I bought several fat quarters and two of them say “do not prewash”. They are all cotton!
I bought some rough linen and it was rough even after washing (to rough to make a skin touching dress). My mother-in-law suggested soaking the yardage in a 5 gal pail with 2-liter bottle of original coke. Thought it was a bit nutty but it worked great! after washing and just smidge of drying it was soft enough to sew.
Interesting! That makes sense, I’ll have to try it
Very helpful information. I have some wool fabric I have been unsure how to handle and avoid dry-cleaning so I am glad to hear it can be washed in the machine at home.
Hi, I’ve been testing out several fabric blends for a new line of men’s golf polos I’m working on. Tencel modal, lyocell, bamboo, cotton. I’m down to either a 70% Lyocell/30% organic cotton- 160 gsm OR 66% lyocell/28% cotton/6% spandex- 150 gsm
I plan on pre washing both in warm or cold & drying on low dryer heat for 10 minutes & hanging to dry completely. Any other suggestions would be appreciated. Also, as I’m wanting to stay away from polyester which makes up 99% of existing polos, is there another blend you might recommend? Thanks & keep up your great work. Al J