Shannon's Fabric Prep

In a post below, Marji asked me to weigh in on washing and drying silk organza. I started a new post because there was no comment box to put this in - hope that's okay.

I "wash" every fabric with which I sew - all fashion fabrics, linings and underlinings. Everything I use gets at least a dunk in water before use to insure a more shrink-proof fabric and to remove sizing (my allergies go nuts if my fabric still has sizing in it and dry cleaning is out of the question for me).

On my blog, I have discussed how I deal with woolens and silks (at the beginning of this post, I discuss my prep work for silk dupioni, but I treat silk organza in the same manner).

If you don't want to read the posts, here's the gist of them. All my fabrics - silks, wools, cottons, linens, etc. get the following treatment. A twenty minute soak (no agitation) in a washer full of water and a capful of Eucalan. The fabric is spun out and then treated one of three ways. It's either hung to dry - I do this with wools that could felt (like crepe or flannel) and rayons that don't like heat. Alternately, I put the fabric in the dryer on low heat - hard wools (like gabardine) and silks (organza, dupioni, charmeuse, chiffon, the whole lot - they will lose some body, but I don't mind that). Or I put in the fabric in the dryer on hot - cottons, linens and most synthetics.

After the garment is made up, it continues to be treated in the same manner, although I try to do as much spot cleaning on my tailored coats and jackets as possible, so they probably only see a washer full of water maybe once a year, if not less. When they do get "washed", it's a quick soak, a spin and then they are laid out very carefully on a flat surface to dry. Finally, a 2-3 minute spin in a cool dryer to shake out any remaining wrinkles and finally a quick touch up with the iron.

In all the time that I have been treating my fabrics this way, I haven't lost one yet. However, if you have any misgivings about treating your fabric they way I do, try testing on a swatch first. Measure out at least a 6" x 6" swatch and treat it how you plan on treating the final garment - I recommend sending the swatch through 3 to 10 wash cycles to be sure all is well (sometimes a fabric won't start to act up until it has been washed several times). After each wash cycle, remeasure and really look closely at the difference between the swatch and the original untreated fabric. Sometimes the fabric doesn't change and sometimes it does. You need to decide if it does change, if that change is a desirable one (some really nifty things can happen to a washed fabric that you may really love).

I realize that I pretty much go against traditional wisdom, but I have no time for wimpy fabrics - if they can't handle my "mistreatment" at the start of a project, then they won't last long in my closet. Since, dry cleaning is not an option for me, I have to be pretty ruthless.