It also has a few wacky properties to it when it comes to sewing. How is Flannel Made? Flannel can be made from wool, cotton or other synthetic fibers. Generally, most sewing takes place with cotton flannel. Why is it so yummy, soft and scrumptious? When being manufactured a fine metal brush is used to raise some of the fibers creating the "nap" or the wonderfully soft fuzzy feeling of the fabric that makes you want to rub it up and down on your cheek.
Flannel Quality. Did you know that the quality of flannel you are sewing with can make a big difference? Say what? Generally, the more expensive the flannel, the higher thread count. Often it is double-sided and will last longer and pill less. It also tends to fray less and shrinks less. I am a big fan of the Flannels made by Robert Kaufman Fabrics. I have found them to be nice and thick, they hold up well, have minimal pilling and are nicer to work with since the weave is a little tighter.
Lower quality flannels have a lower thread count which means they will stretch and distort far easier. They also do not tend to hold up to wear very well. Is Flannel Hard to Sew? I guess it depends on how well you prepare for it. If you follow all of the tips below it should be a breeze.
But if you just jump in thinking its no different than regular quilting cotton, you are likely to come out looking like you just took a polar bear plunge. No, I kid. It's really not that bad. It may make you say a few bad words, but once you learn how to work with it, you will be able to handle it like a pro. Buy More. Flannel has a loose weave and will shrink quite a bit.
You can ensure that you have enough for your project by purchasing more than the project calls for. Generally, a quarter to half is enough.
Ready for the number one question when sewing with flannel? Here it is! It is also my number one tip. Flannel is notorious for shrinking and it is necessary to prewash flannel fabric before sewing. Flannel is often sewn together with fabrics that are polyesters, such as minky or fleece and do not shrink. Sewing unwashed flannel with result in bunching and puckered seams. Washing: I prefer to wash flannel with hot water.
This will help to shrink it down before it heads into the dryer. It will fray quite a bit in the washing machine, but you can help prevent excess fraying by using a lingerie bag. Another tip is to make small diagonal cuts into the corners of the fabric so there are less matted and pulled threads on the edges when you remove it from the washing machine. Drying: Dry Flannel Fabric on the highest heat setting to ensure maximum shrinkage.
This will also help remove excess lint and fuzz before you start sewing it. You can also add a towel or tennis ball to the dryer to prevent twisting and tangling. Pressing your Flannel Fabric is perhaps one of the most important steps when it comes to your flannel sewing project being successful.
Spray starch on the wrong side of the fabric and use a medium heat setting on your iron. Use the steam setting to help reduce wrinkles. This will distort and stretch the fabric. Instead of sliding the iron across the fabric, lift the iron and set down lightly to press. Starching the flannel will make it easier to line up the fabric without it pulling and shifting.
You may find the easiest way to get a straight flannel cut is to fold the fabric Right Sides Together so that the nap holds the fabric in place and to line up the lengthwise grain the threads going up and down vertically.
This can also be achieved by lining the selvage up straight. This is one of the tricky things about sewing with flannel, especially since many flannel prints are plaids which can look wonky when not cut straight. My number one tip starch.
But besides that, it depends on how the flannel was made. A higher-quality flannel is usually made with the fibers or plaid being woven together, so the simple way is to line up the grain vertically the vertical threads in the fabric.
Some flannels are printed on instead and are sometimes printed a bit crooked. In that case, your best bet is to line up the pattern straight on your cutting mat as best as you can. This may make the actual grain of the fabric skewed, but the only way you can make the print look straight. Yes and no. Pinking Shears will help stop flannel from fraying in the immediate future, such as while you are sewing it, but it will not permanently prevent it from fraying and is not a good solution unless that is the look you are trying to achieve, such a flannel rag quilt.
The best and most secure solution for preventing the flannel fabric from fraying is to serge or overlock your seams. If you do not have a serger or overlock machine, you can use a zig-zag stitch on the fabric edge. This is ideal for garments made from flannel. Share your experiences and any other tips you have in the comment section below! Thank you for the tips, above, on quilting or even just sewing, in general with flannel.
Are the photos of your personal stash? The grey windowpane plaid with the pink? One more question: is there a way to discern flannel quality when shopping online? Great questions! If you click on any of those photos, aside from the main image, it will take you to the specific site to buy. It is true about not knowing flannel thread count from online descriptions. When I shop for fabric, and not just flannel, I typically frequent the same quality places because I know they only carry quality fabric.
A local quilt shop is a great place to start. However, if you prefer to shop online, here is a list I compiled of quality fabric shops, Purl Soho being one of them. Good luck, happy sewing and let me know if I can help in any other way! However, if you are a perfectionist and the off-kilter plaids are going to bug you, I would suggest marking guide marks with a ruler and chalk pencil, then cutting with sharp fabric scissors — that way you can have more control making the cuts straight with the plaid rather than cutting strips with a rotary cutter.
I just stumbled upon this aaaah-may-ZING post. Am I doomed. That quilt is going to be used, loved and appreciated. I just got my first flannel baby quilt for our first Great Granddaughter back from the quilter. It is adorable, but I have been a little worried about some info I got at the quilt store I purchased the fabric from.
I, of course, machine stitch the first side of the binding on, but always hand stitch binding on the front side. What is your take o this issue? You can see in my latest Instagram post that I machine stitched both sides of the binding down. Love your post. Thanks so much for all the great info on backing with flannel. My question is, do I still need to add batting when using flannel as a back? However, if you want to add some thickness and warmth to the quilt, you will probably want to. What batting would you recommend?
Thank you! To get a soft drape right out of the bag, I would recommend a poly blend or bamboo batting. However, the more you wash any quilt, the more the drape will loosen up. I wrote a blog post about choosing the right thread for the job — check it out! However, I am machine-quilting a flannel-backed quilt for a friend, and I find that it is very hard work to free-motion this quilt. Naturally, my free-motion work is suffering from not being able to glide this quilt smoothly.
I am using a domestic machine. Do you have any advice? Hmmmm…are you using quilting gloves? I find those to be infinitely helpful when quilting. I use quilting gloves. I also put flannel-backed tablecloths plastic side up on the tables surrounding my machine. Great information. I back all my quilts with flannel as I like that cozy feel on one side of the quilt. Since I have not yet had the courage to try free motion, all my quilts have been stitch-in-the-ditch or something equally simple.
I did recently make a quilt using a flannel charm pack and found out just want you mean about flannel stretching! I made a ridiculously oversized jean patchwork quilt with flannel backing and no batting. I hate playing blanket tug of war with my hubby and two dogs, and the thing kind of just kept growing. We sewed the flannel backing on and added a chambray binding.
Do I need to do every seam or just a few or is it needed since no batting? Appreciate your thoughts! Some of the flannel is heavier than others. Should I use an iron on backing to make them more even in weight? If the fabric manufacturer says wash cold would you still crank up the heat? Prewashing to back a quilt. My washing machine is super basic and just has cold warm or hot — no temperatures! I am doing simple wavy lines. I too am trying to make a memory quilt out of flannel shirts.
Also going to try to long arm quilt it. I just stumbled upon this site and freaking out as well. I have the flannel top of the quilt for my soon coming grand baby.
I was looking for pointers on finishing up with the fleece backing. Finding out about fleece not shrinking and flannel shrinking a ton. What should I do now??
It sounds dreamy! To reduce the shrinkage as much as possible, once your quilt is complete, wash it in cold water. Suzy, your wit and humour makes me giggle to no end! I am new to this quilting lifestyle, boy oh boy, do you ever make it easy to jump in and get my feet mucky!
Metaphorically speaking of course, my cozy socks and fancy tea mugs have never felt more at home sitting still at the machine while I rip out stitches and ignore the dogs for hours.
Thank you for all of your incredible suggestions and guidance, this year old sure does love a good incomplete dating profile reference! The plaid flannels are not created eqaul and really depends on the manufacturer. I have some sitting on my ironing board as wee speak about to start a quilt- but with large blocks.
The larger plaid, you need to cut it on the stripes- many are loaded and get twisted on the bolt- another good way to determine a good tight one from the lesser- they take more care in the loading of the bolts. It also makes it stiffer and feels different. Will see how it works out. TGhanks for the tips. This may be a frustrating answer, but you probably need to just keep shaking it and pulling at the raw edges until it stops shedding.
Eventually it will…it just might take a while. You could try washing it again. I bet that would loosen up some threads. Attach tightly with large rubber bands. When piecing a flannel quilt should the seams be pressed open or to the side? Is it ok to use steam or is a dry iron preferable? Pressing seams open or to the side is really just a personal preference. I like to press to the side just because I think seams are more stable that way. Steam is totally fine as long as you have pre-washed your flannel.
Has anyone out there tried this or is it a bad idea? I quilted with flannel and now noticed there was some stretch while I was quilting….. I know the feeling and it can be disappointing. Some of that might be due to your basting. I suggest leaving it as is and starting a new project. Good luck! Great question! If you cut parallel to the selvage, or lengthwise, your flannel will have little to no stretch.
However, if you cut as you normally would when cutting for a quilt — with the selvages together and crosswise, it will have a bit more stretch.
Assuming you are cutting your flannel for pieces in a quilt, eventually they will be trimmed on all sides. I supposed I could have led with that…haha!
I have learned a few tricks that have helped me piecing flannel. If I am piecing flannel with equal sized squares, I mark the cut edge of one side of the square with a tiny short line that runs parallel to the selvage so I can tell which edge is the un-stretchy direction. I use disappearing pen the blue, not purple. When I piece the squares together to make a ROW I stitch all pieces going along the un-stretchy edge.
Then finger press each seam in the ROW in the same direction. Next row is finger pressed in the opposite direction. Now when attaching row to row they should nest into the seams of the row above them PLUS because this row of stitching is the stretchy edges together they ease together nicely at the parallel seams.
I usually press these seams open. And I am less tempted to move the iron back and forth, which prevents stretching. I piece sets of 4 rows next. She wanted it soft and snuggly, so I did things a little different than I usually do for a T-shirt quilt.
I used featherweight stabilizer, Warm and Natural batting, and backed it with flannel. Tell me it will be OK. More good news is that it will shrink uniformly, so if squared corners are your concern, you should be just fine.
Your granddaughter is going to love it! Hi Suzy, I am making a quilt using a pieced top with a flannel back and no batting. I bought a flannel panel for a baby quilt. I did not wash it. I got ready to quilt doing free motion around some of the figures starting in the center. Noticed uneven stitching.
Took out the machine stitching and decided to hand quilt around pattern in the center. Ready to put this in file 13 and do something different. Thinking about cross hatching the whole panel. Thought could be the reason for the puckering. Flannel is also not an easy fabric to free-motion. You probably will have more luck hand quilting. To keep it from stretching while piecing it together, should the fabric grain go in a certain direction?
Or should I not worry about the grain and just starch the fabric? Your charm pack is probably cut pretty closely to the grain of the fabric already, so all you need now is a bit of starch. How do you make a small quilt with cotton pieced front and flannel backing? Anything I need to do other than prewash the flannel?
Should I use cotton fabric or flannel to bind it? I am a newbie toquilting in general but no experience with flannel. Prewashing your flannel is a good start. You can use flannel for the binding, however since you are new to quilting, I would recommend using your regular quilt-weight cotton, since that will be easier to work with. By only advice is to baste your quilt sandwich really well and if you are machine quilting, use a walking foot and sew slowly.
Do you have any advice on basting the flannel? At least now I can prewash and maybe starch will help. Any other ideas? I use the top of our pool table for all steps of prepping the sandwich and pin basting. And no slipping of the fabric. I take care to not snag the felt top of the pool table! This bucket list item is happening.
It took a while, but I finally found the cutest pre-cut quilt kit! But… it is flannel! Should I let the flannel go and continue my search for an easier quilt kit? Thanks for your help! I also recommend washing it in cold water and fluff drying in your machine or air drying to prevent massive shrinkage. I love all of your tips on this subject and am so glad I stumbled across your site before diving in! Would it be okay to straight line a flannel patchwork quilt?
I plan on using a good quality flannel for this project. I have just completed a lap size flannel quilt top. I usually wash the quilt once completed, but I am thinking about cotton backing and thought perhaps I would wash the quilt top in cold and machine dry BEFORE backing and batting and binding.
Your thoughts? I would either baste the outside of the quilt top OR put it in a lingerie bag or pillow case for washing. Even though the flannel might shrink a bit more than regular cotton, I still think it would be safer to finish the entire quilt, bind it, and then wash it in cold water.
Fluff drying or hang drying would prevent a lot of the shrinking too. I never prewash anything, even flannel quilting for 35 years now. The other thing would be to add a cup of vinegar to the wash water- it sets the color. I use vinegar in all my wash for a number of reasons and it does not harm fabric in any way even if poured directly on the fabric. It makes colors brighter and prevents the greying of black. If you are really concerned about color running, also add a Color Catcher sheet,.
I am making a t-shirt quilt. The plaid is wonky. Any idea what I can do to make it look decent? The plaid should be woven on grain, so in theory, if you rip it rather than cut it, the design should get back on track. You may end up losing inches in the process, though. I bought flannel fat quarter bundles to make a simple quilt for my grandson. Should I prewash them and if so what is the best way to do that? Hand wash? You will end up losing too much do to fraying and quilt patterns that require fat quarters may not work with the new shrunken piece of fabric.
Ok so I recently took up quilting and started with flannel. I am on my third baby quilt right now. The second have me a horrible time with gathering at the ends of the lines. I have only done stitch in the ditch so far but for this one I want to hand quilt it with a cute design. So, for my question can I hand quilt this flannel quilt without getting all the gathering and making it look cheap and crappy? Trust me this quilt is anything but cheap, to me anyways.
Thank you in advance. Hand quilting or even tying a quilt can be a great way to avoid fabric pulling and gathering. Sometimes machine quilting can cause that because of uneven pulling with the foot and feed dogs. Another way to avoid gathering when machine quilting is to baste your quilt sandwich really really well. I plan to buy a high quality flannel layer cake to make a quilt. What can I do to prevent shrinking after the quilt is made to prevent future shrinking? Do you recommend pre-shrinking pre-cut layer cake flannel?
Prewashing precuts is usually on my No-No list because of how much of the precut you can lose due to shrinking and fraying. However, if you are able to lose a couple inches from each precut, prewashing flannel is a good idea.
You could sew a loose basting stitch around the perimeter of each one to prevent some of the fraying. That will get tedious, though, so do that only if you have the time. Once your quilt is finished, wash on a gentle cycle using cold water and lay it flat on a bed of towels to dry.
Heat from the washer and drying are going to be the culprits of major shrinking. I have made several flannel baby quilts, some prewashed…some not. Adds a little love from Grandma. I also hate wonky corners so I trace a quarter circle in each corner when sewing the 3 layers together I birth my quilts instead of binding and I clip the round corners and when I turn them they are very smooth. Learning as I go, A couple years back I made a t shirt quilt for a grandson.
The flannel that was holding the t shirts together is pulling apart. It was a lot of work to do this quilt. Thanks for your input. I think at this point the best thing you can do is mend any areas that have fully pulled apart and then switch to hand washing the quilt rather than machine washing it. Also wash it as infrequently as possible — once a year is not crazy.
Suzy, I bought some flannel backing and tore it selvedge to selvedge, and the piece came out 6 inches wider one one edge than the other! What went wrong?
Sounds like when it was cut from the bolt it was cut pretty severely off grain. Big box stories like fabric. So annoying. I am making it very plan with kantha stitching or pearl stitching and i am having the hardest time getting my needle in and out of the layers of fabric. I see your dilemma. The issue with using flannel rather than batting is that flannel is made up of threads woven together — so the needle and thread need to push their way between those threads.
If you stack two pieces of flannel together as the batting you are now making your needle push through four layers of fabric. Does that make sense? Unfortunately, I think your options are to switch to a thinner, sharper needle and thinner thread probably a traditional quilting thread that is wax coated or to switch to just one layer of flannel or light batting. Hi, thank you for your tutorials and very helpful videos!
On the flannel batting subject… I am making a baby quilt my first and used flannel for the top pieces as well as the batting and linen as the back. And thanks in advance fur your thoughts! One reason batting works well when hand quilting is the thread knots get knotted into the fibers and made more secure over time. With flannel you would have that; however I think if you always double knot your thread and maybe even use a thinner thread, like 12 wt.
I have a mystery quilt that went terribly wrong. How far apart can I tie it? Thank you. Thanks for all the info…really helped. I have a BIG concern still re washing my rag quilt and getting the drain clogged up. Any feedback would be appreciated. You could try using a washing machine bag to keep those extra threads confined. I made a t-shirt quilt with flannel sashing, borders, and backing. Being a newbie, can you tell me whether to cut the binding strips selvage-to-selvage or parallel to the selvage?
Thank you for your help. I suggest cutting them selvage to selvage. Fold the fabric in half, lining up the selvages, lay the fabric on your cutting mat and cut that way. I just bought four 1-yard pieces of flannel at a high quality fabric store.
I have made several quilts and considering myself an advanced quilter. Can you recommend a pattern that works well with flannel? Something to show off the plaid, and in larger pieces? I think the new Reflections pattern would be perfect in flannel!
Do I need to add more quilting? It can also be hung to dry keep hanging or lay flat to reduce wrinkles. You can upcycle far more than your husband's old flannel shirts. As mentioned in the machine washing section, flannel bought to work with for craft projects should be washed and shrunk to prevent extra shrinkage when washed later. Washing flannel by hand takes a bit more work than by machine. It may be worth taking it to a laundry mat to wash if you do not want to go through so many steps, otherwise, follow along and get that flannel ready for sewing.
Fill a container that will hold your fabric with HOT water. Wear protective gear and be careful not to scald your body throughout this process. For the second wash: Add the correct amount of detergent refer to the detergent label once the desired level of water is reached.
Using protected hands or a tool, rotate flannel inside the container to soak with water. Let sit for a few minutes. Fill container with HOT water again.
Optional: Add the fabric softener or vinegar refer to step 3 for details to the water. Rinse the flannel one more time in equally HOT water as previously used. Hang to dry and keep hanging or laid flat to reduce wrinkles. If a machine dryer is available, use this and remove promptly once dry.
If you are familiar with lumberjacks and the music grunge era, you probably have an idea about how to wear a flannel. Many flannel shirts button or snap down the front, which allows the wearer to leave it open or closed. Wearing a tank top or t-shirt underneath is usually a way to be fashionable as well as provide a cooler and warmer option for the outfit. Wear a longer flannel shirt and tuck it in or tie to add a fashion statement. You can even sew flannel into a dress as is shown in the picture below.
It's an awesome idea for your husband's oversized shirts he doesn't wear anymore! Flannel is great because it can be dressed up or down by combining it with a skirt or worn over a dress or wearing it with jeans or leggings.
Even though flannel is warm, it can be made warmer with the addition of a vest over the shirt. This is a smart alternative to a jacket for fall or mild winter weather. Check out these flannel sewing patterns and see for yourself all the versatility there is with this type of fabric!
Seattle Style Shirt Dress Refashion - pictured above! Fall Flannel Table Runner - pictured below! She has a passion for creative writing and trying every craft at least once. Find more of her work here: Krista Childers. Let us know in the comments! Be the first to upload your own image for this pattern!
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