Back 12 years ago when I started to piece and grow a fabric stash, this was the question I asked every quilter I knew. With a short history of sewing my own clothes...6th grade home ec., a bit in high school and college, I figured pre-shrinkage was the way to go. I washed, ironed, and stored every bit of fabric I purchased. It was a lot of work! Now I stack my fabric on the shelf until I'm ready to use it and then decide if I want to prewash or not.
Whether to prewash really depends on the look you want for the quilt and how the quilt will be used. For example, for most of the lap and bed quilts I make, I love the scrunchy texture that results from using unwashed fabric and batting out of the package once the quilt is washed and dried for the first time. However, for wall hangings and applique, I will use prewashed fabric because I desire a flat look to the quilt and may not be washing the quilt at all.
My decision to prewash is really determined by what type of quilt I'm making which also helps me decide which type of batting to put inside the quilt. For example, if I'm making an heirloom quilt and want an antique, scrunchy texture that old quilts have, I will not prewash the fabric. The batting will be 100% cotton and the quilting lines will be close together (1-2"). After quilting and binding, the quilt can be washed and dried to produce the look I'm after.
The worst advice, which I've actually read in some quilting books, is to wash your fabric in the hottest water to shrink and set the color. The rationale being this will be the toughest treatment so you'll have no worries later. Well, that fabric just took a beating it didn't need which is an ignorant way to approach fabric care. Lukewarm water and a phosphate-free detergent that will not strip the color from the fabric is the way to go.
If you logically think about it and educate yourself a bit, you will learn how to care for your fabric, not tear down the fibers before cutting it up for quilt construction. For an educated look at fabric and how it is processed and should be handled, read From Fiber to Fabric by Harriet Hargrave. She and her daughter, Carrie Hargrave, are co-authors of Quilter's Academy, a new 6-volume series by C & T Publishing, which is a skill-building course in quiltmaking. Education=success!
Copyright ©2010, Sharon Baggs
For the binding on the feedsack quilt, the fabric chosen was Mama's Feedsacks by Darlene Zimmerman for Robert Kaufman. It's a reproduction of the original red so it matches nicely to give an attractive edge to frame the variety of prints in the quilt. The same fabric was used to back the quilt as well. Love, love, love this red.
Then position this vertical folded piece directly on top of a second horizontal strip, right side up. Notice how the fold is positioned so the dots are evenly spaced.
By folding the tip down you can see that the dots line up. The fold line is just to the left of the dot and will be the line that is stitched. The dots on the right will become part of the seam line as you will see in the pictures below.
Start at the corner and stitch down the visible fold line to the opposite corner. If you have prepared all your strips, you can continue to stitch the next one by allowing your machine to take a few stitches in between, then sew the next strip without breaking the thread. By chain piecing in this way, you will end up with your strips completely joined in one go. Snip between each thread join to make one continuous strip.
Double check your stitching before trimming the seam lines. Using an acrylic ruler, line up the 1/4" mark along the stitched line.
Trim the seam to 1/4" using a rotary cutter.
Press the seams open.
A perfect seam makes the fabric's pattern look continuous.Trim the thread tails. Fold the strip in half, right sides facing out, and press. This creates a double-fold binding strip. For more details on the process of sewing the binding to the quilt, please see posts from Feb. 2009--
For the thread, I chose Presencia's 50 wt. cotton (color #300--medium bay blue). When you free motion on minkie, the thread 'melts' into the fabric, making it difficult to see the actual stitch. When your machine is stopped, with the needle down into the fabric, use your fingers to feel the area you are heading into so you don't cross over stitched lines. Sufficient lighting helps to see where you've been and where you're going. (View of back, shown below)
My attempt to remove them resulted in only lightening the x's and dots. I did this by mixing a solution of baking soda, a few drops of Synthrapol (which contains Isopropyl Rubbing Alcohol) so I added a couple more drops of rubbing alcohol to the solution and gently scrubbed it in with a toothbrush. Then I let the quilt soak in lukewarm water for 1-2 hrs., spun out the water and rinsed. I avoided heavy agitation of the wash cycle. I also read the suggestion to use Oxo Brite non-chlorine bleach. I tested this on a small area of the quilt and it didn't seem to lighten the dye. However, if left to soak for a time, it might be effective.
My initial thought was to make a "Gold Coin Quilt" with lots of gold fabrics weaved into the design. I looked at traditional Chinese Coin quilts and made my coins longer and leaner than the standard. It was only after the quilt was completed and someone on the committee said, "It looks like a magic carpet" that the name stuck. The quilt measures 34" x 56".
The quilt top is made entirely of batik fabrics. I cut each coin 1.5" x 5" and sewed them in pairs. I sewed a long length of coins to a long length of the solid blue batik to complete the layout. I'm going to tweak the instructions for making the basic section/block for the quilt, adding more to make different sizes. This was just a first run with revisions and alternate border ideas still to come.
For the binding, I used a gold batik, that looked like the gold coins I was thinking about all along, to frame the finished quilt.
Hannah and her lifelong friend, Emily, who portrayed a friend of the Princess Jasmine.
Hannah and Haley, two peas in a pod who became good friends during this production!
When I started quilting almost 12 years ago, I had an intense love affair with those perky reproduction fabrics designed after the original feedsacks of the 1930's. I collected many of them but I never owned an original vintage feedsack...until this week, thanks to ebay. I was prompted to go on the hunt for the sole purpose of completing 
To add three rows to the original quilt top, I needed 45 additional squares. Andrea's mom contributed these two red prints, one being a full sized original feedsack, the first I'd ever seen.
I removed 5" of stitching along the side seam at the top of the sack, clipped the fabric and tore it along the width. From this I cut the squares. Because thick string was used to sew feedsacks together, small holes remain where the string is removed. You can work around those by examining the fabric carefully before cutting a square to size.
Made entirely of batiks, they worked a beautiful color scheme around this design. According to one of the piecers, the quilt was very easy to construct; however, the tricky part was choosing the right fabric and then placing the blocks to show a semblance of order in the all-over design.
I used Superior Thread's King Tut for the quilting and changed color to blend in with the fabric. Batiks have a higher thread count so the fabric remains fairly taut while quilting. The backing was a heavy green felted fabric (I called it billard cloth, but it's not really that heavy!) I used a 40 wt. YLI brand cotton thread in the bobbin.
The border of the quilt was pieced from random pieces matching the color of the blocks and I pieced the binding to match each print along the edge. It turned out so well! Especially with a batik, you can just match the color, not necessarily use the same print and it will frame the quilt nicely, not distracting your eye away from the design of the quilt. The binding does need to be pieced-as-you-go with straight seams to join (not diagonal) but it's just a little extra effort that makes a big impact for the finished look.
