Starching yardage

[Pamela O.]

I want to starch some fabric for the quilt I am working on. Need some nitty gritty info. I first started practicing by spraying a few small pieces at the ironing board. Decided this wouldn't work as the starch would eventually land on the carpet and cause a carpet problem. So I spayed some in the sink, and thought that this was stupid as it would take forever to spray all the little pieces I'd need. When you use spray starch, how do you keep it from going all over the place? So you wait until it dries to iron it? I can see a lot of uses for the spray starch as it is so convenient.

I've decided that starching yardage is a better solution for me, but I'd like ideas how others do this. As a child, we made starch in boiling water, hung the clothes to dry outside, then dampened and ironed them. Of course, I swore to never use starch again, but here I am. Would just soaking the fabric in a sink of starch, roll up in a towel to get the excess starch out, and throw it in the dryer work? Does it matter if it gets fully dry in the dryer? Is there any difference between ironing the fabric just with steam vs damping the fabric before ironing? How do you avoid starch build up on the iron?

In practicing, I made some pieces stiffer than others. In reading some prior posts, I see that starching fabric as stiff as a board is mentioned. I found that there was a stiffness that made the fabric keep its shape that seemed to be perfect to me. Does everyone starch fabric board stiff? Or do you adjust the stiffness to what you need?

[Margo C.]

Pennyhal, just like everything else in quilting, there is no definitive answer for this! Ask 10 people and you will probably get 10 different answers.

What I do is "chunky cut" the fabrics that I need to starch (these are slightly larger than the actual patch I need) and spread them out on the floor on old beach towels to absorb the excess starch overspray.
Then I soak them them with spray starch using a mister bottle and let them air dry. I usually do this prep work the night before I intend to sew them, then in the morning I just iron the dried fabrics with a steam iron and the result is really stiff fabrics that are absolutely flat, and ready to be cut to the proper sizes.

If I need 40 2"x2" pieces of one fabric, I will starch something about 5" x 42", or 10" x 21" or whatever I have that will yield enough pieces.

I mix my own spray starch with liquid Sta-Flo brand starch and water, in a 50-50 proportion. That's what works for me.

[Lotti D.]

i use about the same mix for the spray bottle
a weaker mix if i starch in a bucket or bowl - those pieces i usually just wring out and drip dry (inside the bathtub - so the drips can be cleaned easily)
as i'm in an apartment with wall to wall carpets i don't like to use spray on anything largish

[Rita C.]

As for me, I just use spray starch from the supermarket. I usually spray enough of the fabric to do the project I am working on. The trick to avoid getting starch all over your iron is to spray the starch on one side and then turn it over and iron on the other side. Alternatively you could use an ironing cloth on top of the fabric. The ironing cloth will eventually become stiff from all the spray starch too though.

[Renata L.]

I, for the most part, do what Rita does--spray on one side and press on the other, the piece that I am going to use. I've noticed that if I press with steam on one side and then the other starched piece of fabric, then press one more time without steam, the fabric will dry out nicely, creases and wrinkles come out and I get the stiffness I want in the fabric.

In order not to starch my wood floor or the window alcove where my ironing board is set up, I hang a large bath towel over the shower door, and with my fabric leaning against the towel, I can spray to my heart's delight because then all I really have to do is wash the towel when I'm done starching all the pieces I plan to work with.

[Renata L.]

Thanks for sharing your ideas! With the dogs running around and needing a yard of a couple of fabrics to starch, decided to just wet the fabric each in one piece in the sink. One piece I put in the dryer, the other I just hung in the shower to dry. The one that came out of the dryer was firm but not stiff. The one I hung to dry is as stiff as a board! I'll dampen/iron them today and see if I get the results I want.

The mytifying thing is that I used a towel to wrap around the fabric to soak up the excess water. When I went to rinse the starch out of the towel, I swished it around in cold water and it bled like crazy! After I rinsed it two times more, it stopped bleeding. Now this is a really old towel, maybe 25 years old. I use it all the time. It never has bled. It had to be the interaction between the starch and the towel that caused this. The fabric had bled some when I prewashed it and put a color collector in the sink just in case there was some residue left, but no color bled from the fabric. I've never heard of this happening, but I'll sure be careful about which towel I use to wrap around fabric in the future.

[Margo C.]

That's weird! What kind of starch did you use??

[Margo C.]

I have had that happen--before you ask Margo--I don't know what kind of starch it was.

[ANNE E.]

You can lay your fabric in the bath tub and spray it then rinse the bath out ....or....on small pieces I keep a large cardboard box handy and lay my pieces in that then spray.
In my washing machine there is a programme for adding starch or other stuff.
Hope this helps
Anne