Care and Treatment for your Fabrics

Our Friends at P&B have sent us these guidelines for the care and treatment of P&B Fabrics.

• If you are making an art quilt or wall hanging that won't be washed, it is recommended that you do not pre-wash your fabric.
• If the quilt is dusty, tumble it in a cold dryer for a few minutes, and shake it out.
• If you pre-wash fabric, do not use hot water or a hot dryer. Once quilts are made, they should only be washed and dried in cold water and a cool dryer (or dried flat), and only if the fabric was pre-shrunk prior to construction of the quilt.
• If you are making a quilt with light and dark fabrics, it is suggested that you pre-wash the dark fabrics to remove any potential bleeding.  This can be done in cold water.  A good test of bleeding is to add a light-colored or white piece of fabric to the dark wash, and see if any color bleeds onto it.  If so, repeat the washing process until the light colored swatch comes out without any color change.
• Detergents can fade fabrics.  It is recommended that you use a gentle detergent to wash quilts, and no detergent at all for pre-shrinking.  Orvis is recommended.

If you have followed these guidelines, your fabric should not shrink more than 5% selvage to selvage, and most fabrics won't bleed or fade at all.

NOTE FROM QPF:  These are great guide lines for all the fabrics we sell!  We do sell Orvis Quilt Soap and we highly recommend it to wash your quilts.  Another thing we use is "Color Catchers" - they help catch colors that bleed to lighter fabrics.