SNUGGLY WARM
Posted by mountaintopquilting on Tuesday, January 19th, 2010
How many of you wash your quilts? Most of my quilts have never been washed. Most of them are class/booth samples and spend most of their lives folded on the shelf, traveling in a suitcase from shop to show, or hanging in a shop to advertise a class. But in the recent move even with careful packing it was obvious some of my quilts needed to be laundered. And what better opportunity to run the new washer/dryer set-up through it's paces. Let's just see what how well they do with a quilt.
First I chose a quilt that was soon to be retired to bedroom use. Sounds kind of funny to think I have 125+ quilts and few of them can actually be used on the bed, doesn't it. LOL
My rule of thumb is ... if the fabric in the quilt has already been pre-washed on the same settings as you would use for any regular cotton fabric garment, then those same settings should be okay for washing the quilt. Normal wash cycle (warm/warm) and normal dry cycle (warm). The front loading washers are wonderful for washing quilts without doing any damage. I might be re-thinking the process if I were using a top-load washer with the agitation function. When I washed quilts years ago in my top loader, I would fill the tub and then stop the cycle, agitate by hand, and then fast forward to the spin/rinse cycle.
In my "never washing quilts" frame of mind I had forgotten the old-fashioned crinkledy luxurious softness that you discover when you remove the quilt from the dryer all fresh and warm. Most of my quilts are filled with the 80/20 blend from the Warm Company. I love the warmth and the lightness I get with my quilts using this batting.
And so my morning started with the UPS man delivering my brand new purple sherpa lined slippers (that I got on sale!) a venti sized hazlenut latte straight from my kitchen, and snuggle time in a soft freshly warm-from-the-dryer quilt as I watched the snow falling outside my window. How can it get any better than that?
