I made the same quilt that is in your lovely avatar! I made it out of Quilt shop quality flannels - those really great ones that look like men's herringbone suits. I washed and dried the flannel on hot TWICE, as I was advised it would shrink a lot. It went from 42.5 wide to 39 wide!!

I have always been an advocate of pre-washing, but that experience really sealed the deal for me.

They do.

I always prewash. When I get home with new fabric I serge around the two cut edges( prevents raveling) and then wash and dry it so that when I am ready to use it I know it's ready to go.

I do wash the completed quilt, for a lot of reasons. Even if it's going to stay with me, I want to get out any starch, blood, sweat, or tears that I've added. I'm especially adamant about doing this with comfort quilts, because I usually don't know where they're going and whether the recipient will have allergies, or ready access to a washing machine. Washing also seems to make any loose thread tails from quilting more visible. Also I don't the recipient to think s/he has ruined the quilt if it puckers and looks "different" the first time s/he washes it. However it looks after washing - that's the way it's SUPPOSED to look. LOL

Does anyone have a steam option on their dryer that they use? I'm wondering if that is sufficient to get the chemicals off and take care of the shrinkage? I only use 100% cottons and have quite the time getting the wrinkles out without warping the fabric after prewashing and drying my fabrics. I'm truly challenged when it comes to ironing. Thankfully pressing is much simpler!

might work on wrinkles, but will not remove the chemicals, nor take care of bleeding dyes!

Thanks for that, I wouldn't have assumed any batting would really be pre-washable.

Wow, I think you have a keeper there. :thumbup:

Ok, don't or do prewash according to whether you like the crinkly look or not?????????? The first quilt I made I did not prewash and one of the colors ran horribly!!! I used a color grabber and ran it through the washer several times until it was more or less under control.

Now I prewash everything as soon as I bring it home. I begin with putting suspecious fabrics (deep reds, or other very dark colors) into a bin of very hot water. If it bleeds badly I soak it in cold water and salt. No more surprises for me, thank you. Some of you people are very daring.

By the way, my washer died a few months ago and I got a front loader. It has a spin and dry cycle so after soaking a fabric I can spin and "dry" it in 12 minutes and put it into a hot dryer. Front loaders are sooo much nicer to quilts!