Have you ever bought awesome fabric, made clothes, washed them only to have the clothes shrink and therefore be too small? What should you do to make sure this doesn’t happen again? Well, you should prewash your fabric.

Prewashing fabric is the first thing you should do when you get fabric. This shrinks the fabric so that you don’t make something and wash it only to find that it no longer fits. It also helps you figure out whether it needs to be serged, because it ravels. You want to be sure to wash your fabric on your washer’s highest setting and dry it on the hottest setting as well, unless the fabric shouldn’t be washed on warm. It also ensures that the fabric you are using is clean.

You can add fabric softener either with softener sheets or liquid fabric softener in the softener balls they sell in the store.