So if you
like me, you probably heard that you have to pre-wash your fabric for reasons.
But then you probably thought,
how exactly would I do that?
Is it any different than washing clothing?
Well, luckily for you, today I have a huge pile of fabric
that I need to pre-wash before I start my sewing
because I don't want to ruin anything.
And we are going to go together for easy steps on what you need to think about
when you're ready.
Washing fabric
Welcome, my dear sewing friends.
It is wonderful to have you here again if you are just brand new here.
Welcome.
My name is Evelyn Wood
and I am the creator of Vintage SewingSchool.com and well,
here on this channel
we talk about everything
to help our garment sewing because I want you to create
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Because we have lots of videos coming up just like this one.
Now, you've obviously seen the title of today's video
and we are pre washing fabric how to free wash fabric.
I have made videos in the past on
why to pre-wash fabric and they'll be linked down below.
Of all the reasons and I know you've heard this right,
why quick and easy, why we pre-wash is to stop shrinkage discoloration
Basically, you want to find out if anything's going to happen to your fabric
before you go to all the trouble of making a garment out of it
because we don't know how long that takes
And then find out that the collar runs or it shrinks or something.
We don't want that after that.
It's a pre washing and fabric can just be dirty to that spot that other videos for.
This is how because the question come up a lot in that video and
I get asked this a lot is how to pre-wash so this is what we're doing.
I have a massive pile of fabric that I've collected here
and some secondhand, some brand new and we're
just going to go through the stats together.
I've broken it down into four steps preparation, sorting, washing and drying.
Of course, I think the drying is one of the most important points.
The single biggest rule in pre washing any fabric is that you want to pre-wash it.
So wash your fabric in the exact same way that you're going to treat
the finished garment because that's basically what we're doing.
We're seeing if it can withstand
the washing that we're going to use for the garment.
So there's no point treating your fabric delicately with a hand wash
if you intend on putting your finished garment into the machine on a strong cycle
and in the tumble dryer
after that,
you want to dry it in the same way at the same temperatures and detergent,
same everything. That's the basic rule.
But let's get on with our four steps.
So let's start with the prepping.
And so prepping for any kind of fabric is really about
finishing off the raw edges.
So here's one I've already prepared later.
Yeah. You want to finish off the raw edges?
Because if you don't and I'm not going to say
that I do this every single time, but if you put this in the washing machine
with all these raw edges, it is going to fray out.
Every fabric is different.
Some fabric will fry more than others,
but you end up with maybe even less fabric as a phrase through here, or your other
fabric will end up with all the little threads and fluff all over it.
So if you're doing lots together, it's definitely
super important if you're only doing that one length,
you can probably get away with it a little bit less, but you want to finish it off.
So overlook surge.
Pinking shears fold over twice and stitch zigzag on stage.
Whatever you're doing to finish your edges,
finish the raw edges of the fabric, and let's then sort our fabrics
just like you would
with regular laundry, sort into colors and sort into fluffiness.
So if you have a lot like this, if you're just doing the one, of course
it's just by itself, there is no sorting move on to the next step.
But if you've got a few things
or you're going to put it in with other garments even, that's okay,
you want to sort it.
So I thought by colors, obviously if you're thinking about color
run, you don't put darks with lights together for a reason of color on
and for a reason or for any little fluff and fibers come off your fabric,
you don't want to have black fluff all over your white fabric.
It's really hard to get off. We know that.
And if you have something like corduroy or anything like that,
you definitely want to keep that either by itself or something.
Will it still,
even though you finished the edges, it can be quite fluffy that first wash
a lot of fibers shed from things like corduroy and fluffy fabrics like that.
So you might want to keep those separately.
The other thing is if you have vintage fabrics and are a little bit
concerned about color, unlike this one that I have here,
what I'm going to do is actually test this one first
because it is an older fabric,
and so it might be a little bit more prone to color run.
And we'll get to that when we get into the laundry in a little bit.
So I'm going to sort into let me see
okay.
My sorting is looks like this.
I have actually already cheekily pre-washed these two corduroys
because I did them separately
because I didn't want any fluff to come off on to anything else.
So those are done.
But they they were separate added separately.
I think these ones here will be all fine to do.
This is a second hand fabric,
but I think the color won't come off and I'm going to do it with these darker ones.
So even if something happened, it wouldn't matter.
This knit is second hand, but I don't think that this is going to run
in color. I'm not concerned about this.
And this black one is actually a new fabric that I've purchased.
So I'm not concerned about color on on this one.
But it is quite a long length on this roll, and I might actually have to
only cut off certain lengths that I'm going to use
because drying this much this much length is quite tricky.
And you see that when we get to that step
but these will be washed together in the tub, if I can.
And then all of my whites, the only thing I will test this one
for a color run first to see if it's going to test that way.
All my fluffiness is separated, my colors are separated
and won't damage each other.
So I'm just going to finish off these edges and then we are going to wash
and washing.
You know, I'm going to say use the same wash cycle as you
normally would wash your garments with because that's what it has to stand up to.
So I'm always a fan of delicate cycles
and one of the coolest setting that you possibly can.
And the less speed, these are all things that will help your garments wash.
If actual washing garments is something that you're interested in.
Garment kit I'd love to tonight leave me a comment down below.
Maybe it's a feature video.
I use the same detergent that you normally would in the same wash cycle.
Now, I did talk about testing this fabric and I have it right here in my hand.
So all I've done is I've wet this.
It's been wet for a little while, so I soak, puts them at the detergent,
then I'm going to use and over the colored parts that I'm concerned about.
And so I'm just going to like debit.
Fortunately, I have white on this fabric here.
And so
giving it a dab
to see if any color has come off at all into the white color.
And so far it looks good so I'm going to go ahead.
It's already with other colors.
I'm going to make sure I don't
leave it in the washing machine longer than it has to get it out straight away
so that there aren't colored parts touching other colored parts just in case.
But otherwise, this is good to go
well,
while we wait for that, if you're enjoying this content,
I would there's many other ways that you can get more of this.
I've linked down below links to my sewing guides.
This is a guide sewing guides to all of my great YouTube content
here that is all organized, searchable in order.
So all of these topic videos that you I know you save for later
because you want to reference them at times.
These sewing guides are a way to have them all in one place.
You can actually find all of this content
so these are my YouTube sewing guides and I've linked those down below.
Okay, let's watch this.
And while drying is coming up,
and yes,
this is how we do laundry in the tropics.
Sun shirt hat, sunny sunscreen the works.
Needless to say, it won't take long out here
because, you know, for drying, I'm going to say
you need to dry it in the way that you usually would
if you only tumble dry, like put your clothes in the dryer,
then you should dry your fabric the same way
I line dry and I think a lot of us do, too.
And it does is helpful with garment care and for long lengths.
So really what you want to be concerned with here is we are trying to avoid
damaging the grain of the fabric and we don't want unnecessarily
just folds in lines, but we don't want to put extra weight
that distorts the grain and makes it hang in odd ways.
So if your fabric is really heavy, just like a heavy
fabric, it's going to be a little bit more difficult to manage than it will.
And I slight one like this
Did you hear that frog?
The joys of filming outside.
So so what I recommend is putting it
over as many rungs as possible, so I get it as flat as possible.
So rather than just one rung over
and I
would always recommend that you go lengthwise,
so don't try and avoid putting it over the line.
Selvage to selvage like this.
Like you have the fold in the fabric.
Try and avoid that.
Try and go lengthways if you can.
And so what I try and do is avoid unnecessary kinks.
So this is over one rung.
So it is getting folded and pushed around the entire one.
So I want to loosen off that and distribute
the weight a little bit more so I can actually put this over
many rungs of wire and it'll reduce use the weight of the fabric.
So something lightweight like this I would just do
just on the second rung here, but a really heavy one.
I would actually try and do it as flat as possible and do the whole thing
so that one is taking the weight that way.
You only that now have one kink at a 90 degree
angle on your fabric not a whole kink the whole way round.
So something lightweight like this is pretty easy.
You're not going to distort the fabric, but what if you have long lengths
or something heavy or drapey actually really drapey fabrics
and a little bit of attention.
And that's where this trick comes in.
And that is where you want to hang it
from the selvage down and you need some good clips for this.
So the nice why
the metal pick
this pegs that you get these days, these are wonderful this or these hangers
that are meant for skirts and trousers are a bit as well.
So here's the trick.
We want to hang this from along the selvage now.
I've got a huge length of fabric here
super long and what I want to do is actually hang it from here.
I don't want to keep putting folds and drapes over it.
So here's the trick
simply clip
on the selvage part if you can
but if you need to clip it on the fabric part, that is okay.
And so now you have your fabric
hanging with no stress on any of the green whatsoever.
If you can cut onto the selvage, that's the strongest point.
Sort of hold it in shape.
You can do this inside, which is better than outside here,
flopping around on a garment rack a curtain rail,
anything that you can you can do this inside.
So this is
my really favorite way to hang the fabric so you don't distort the grain.
Okay.
So just remember, it's about trying to avoid harsh creases and bends
and trying to distort the grain mind the least.
I'm just going to let these dry
so now your fabrics dry.
Now what?
Well, I did make a sacrificial edge that I did not overlook.
You can see here, and I've got lots of ready tails
compared to the one that I did finish this one
Yeah.
Now all you need to do is really decide if you are going to iron and it now
or later.
You absolutely need to press it before you.
So before you cut out your patterns so that it's nice and flat wrinkle free.
It'll be much more accurate in your cutting needs to happen.
But if you're not going to do that straight away,
you're likely going to be folding it up or rolling it or something like that
and storing it for a while.
And as we all know, that gets creases from where you fold and store it.
So it's really up to you whether you iron impress it now
because you probably still have to do it
when you cut out or you just wait until that stage.
Generally, I wait until that stage.
I'm just going to fold and roll these up onto rolls
and then I will iron them as needed when I am going to use it,
unless it's a super crinkly one that I can't stand to look at all wrinkly.
I'll do that step later.
So now you fabric is all clean, it's color fast, it's
pretty shrunk and now you are ready to.
So I really hope this helps you in understanding how to pre-wash your fabrics.
Remember, there is only one golden rule pre-wash your fabric
as you are going to wash your end garment and you'll be fine.
I love to hear your best tips on pre washing down below as well.
Let us know because not everyone, this doesn't come naturally to everyone.
Other people will love to read those comments. Me too.
And I must not forget if you are interested in finding out how to maybe
reset the grain or fix the grain line on fabrics
when you pre-wash them and they end up a warp and twisted.
Well, that is in next week's video, my friend.
So stay tuned for that.
Subscribe or check the description box below.
Link it there when it is made. Okay.
And so next time my sewing friends happy sewing, bye.