As you can see, washing a quilt softens the fabric around the quilting. The stitches tend to tuck in deeper into the quilt, making the quilting texture appear less prominent.
The fabrics stand out a bit better after washing, too. If you're ever worried about your quilting looking too loud on the quilt, just remember that after washing, it's going to soften and hide within the batting and fabric. The more it's washed, used, and loved, the less the quilting stands out and the more it becomes part of the background.
How do I wash my quilts?
If it's a bed quilt or a throw quilt for the couch, I toss the quilt in the washer and dryer with my clothes. I wash with cold or warm water, using this mild detergent, and then tumble dry on low.
I wash quilts often - bed quilts usually every 1-3 months and table cloth quilts weekly.
For wall hangings, it depends on if I planned on washing the quilt when constructing it. Some wall hangings are not designed to get wet - just like an acrylic painting on canvas!
If
I planned for washing, I'll soak the quilt in my bathtub, use the washer to wring out the excess water, then block the quilt on the floor by pinning it to polystyrene boards (my design wall) straight and square.
Just in case you're wanting to learn how to Quilt-As-You-Go, here's a tutorial on how to connect really huge blocks together. I used the exact same technique to connect really tiny blocks together, so you can
use it for any size block and it works great!
Huge QCT 6 Sale In July
