Always prewash your fabrics!

Yes, I'm a firm believer in always prewashing your fabrics. After about the gazillionth time that something shrunk after I spent hours of sewing, I learned that lesson. Always always. Before you sew anything, prewash, even if you think you'll never have to wash them, do it anyway.

Well, I broke my own rule with the dining room curtains, that cover your sliding glass door.

I wouldn't have had enough fabric if they shrunk and I was So anxious to have some privacy and color after we moved into our house!

Unfortunately, I remembered I hadn't prewashed them after I stopped laughing when a friends dog lifted his leg and pee'd on them. Oh, really, it was really funny, especially the reactions from his owner. But with a young dog, we're used to a lot worse then a little pee. Just to be safe, I threw the curtain in the washer on COLD, and took it out of the washer to hang dry. Surely they wouldn't shrink after I had taken such precautions to avoid it, right?

Wrong! After LOTS of laughs (especially once Kevin saw them) I finally took this picture. Meet my new "capri" curtains, all ready for summer! Good thing I know the lady who made them (me) and EXACTLY where I could find some more fabric just like it! So, I've now washed and dried BOTH curtains to make them equally short and also washed and dried the extra fabric that I bought so there should be NO MORE SUPRISES for the next time I wash them :)