stillclock

i have done quite a bit of machine quilting on this project and it's....getting there.

my lines are shaky though in more places than i can conceive of frogging. and well..it's just...amateur in the extreme, really.

it's made of cotton and linen, flannel on the back and 100% cotton batt. prewashed the fabrics and the backing, but not the batt.

i know once you wash them they crinkle and the quilting lines themselves become a little less obvious, but what would happen, do you think, if i washed it in hot and dried it on high?

silly idea? i'm giving it away, so it won't torture me to see it. but i am kind of...um...i dunno. not 100%.

maybe now that i have this typed out i see that this is foolish. but maybe you have thoughts otherwise.

aileen

krafty14

I always like the look of my quilts after I wash them. My quilting isn't perfect P but looks better after washing. I am one of those that do not prewash, so the quilts do shrink up more.

justflyingin

Definitely--do what you suggested. I doubt you need to wash it on hot, though--unless you are sure of the colors--warm will probably do--the dryer should be enough to shrink it up!

PaperPrincess

I agree, I think the heat of the dryer will be enough. Stop the dryer and redistribute the quilt a couple times during the drying process.

ManiacQuilter2

I think it would be tough on your batting. May shorten it's life. Just a thought. Never done that before.

Jingle

I would dry it on high heat and redistribute it as suggested above. I don't think it will shorten the life of anything.
I did this with hobbs 80/20 batting and made sure I had quilted it heavily to keep it from shrinking too much. It turned out very well, I doubled the batting as I thought it was too thin. Usually I use high loft polyester batting and the dryer never harms it. I dry on low heat.

jcrow

I never prewash unless it's flannel & I don't hardly use flannel, but I don't know if it will shrink much after prewashing all the fabric. I'd do hot water. I've done hot water on some of my quilts that are pretty dirty. Didn't shorten their life by any means. You might be able to shrink if you do hot water & high dryer. Since you are giving it away & don't really care about the quilt, try it. I always dry my quilts on high. Always have. Never thought to do any different. I usually use warm water, but I think the hot would be fine if there's no RED or anything that might bleed. But you prewashed & took care of that already.