Pre washing terry towelling before sewing overlock first??

[willow5]

I have been told you should pre wash your fabric before sewing which is no drama. I have bought some terry towelling to make (hopefully ) some bibs (simple project for a beginner I thought )

Anyway someone has told me I need to overlock the edges of the terry towelling before I pre wash it so it doesn't all frey and unravel, is this right???

Help appreciated as I have no idea

[willow5]

Anyone?

[luna moth]

I have found that no matter what you do with terry, it will leave bits of itself in your washing machine, overlocked or otherwise. Drives me nuts.

Anyway... I don't really think you would have to overlock it first. If you're worried, wash it on a gentle cycle, maybe inside a garment bag, and see how it fares. If it's a fairly big bit of terry, the worst that'll happen is you'll lose one or two mil off the unfinished edges, which will not affect your project.

Terry bibs sound really cute! Good luck!

[willow5]

Thank you Audax!

[melbel]

Yeah It's goona fluff whether you edge it or not but if you do edge you may avoid theunravveling and then getting caught up around the agitator issue if you have a top loader.....I tend not to bother but know I will lose a bit of fabric length to the unravelling in the pre wash so factor that in to the measurements

[willow5]

Thanks guys, also should it be a hot wash?

[~Raven~]

I would over lock the edge of the terry so you don't lose too much with fraying. I lost about 10cm off the edge once so learned this the hard way

[willow5]

10cm

[luna moth]

10cm

Serious? Yipes!