Sewing Lessons with Miss E and Me: Prewashing Fabric

I asked my Grandma, 

"Do you have to pre-wash your fabric before sewing?"

She told me that depends on the fabric.

 If you plan on washing the garment after you make it, it's probably a good idea. Sometimes she worries that the colors will bleed during washing or the fabric will shrink and ruin the outfit. The colors she usually pre-washes are blues and reds. We want to make a top like this so we received this fabric with a lot of blue and lime green in it from a very generous lady, Susan, that we think would be great.

http://shwinandshwin.com/2014/11/rainbow-pieced-peplum-free-pattern.html

So Grandma and I thought we would do an experiment with our fabric.  We filled the sink with water and let the fabric sit for 15 minutes.

This is what we found. YIKES!

We put the water in a white cup so you could see it better.

My Grandma is making a dress for my sister right now 

out of these fabrics.

She's been hand embroidering clothing on these animals with no bodies. We talked about how icky it would look if the white fabric  was no longer white but dirty white because the black heart fabric dye bled onto the fabric when it was washed. So she decided to pre-wash the fabric.

Grandma suggests pre-washing fabric in the same way that you plan to launder the garment.  She usually doesn't pre-wash 100% polyester fabric or take wool fabric to the dry cleaners first. When she uses 100 % cotton fabric, flannel,
 and knit fabrics, she always pre-washes them.

Some times when she is in a hurry to use the fabric, she washes it in the kitchen sink, rinses with a little bit of fabric softener in the water, and dries it all by itself in the dryer. 

Well, that's all for this week, I hope you enjoyed
 seeing our experiment.

Next Friday, I want to share what I just learned

 about sewing elastic ends together in 3 different ways.

Smiles,

Miss E

 with help from Grandma