The following information relates to quilts made by Too Cool T-shirt Quilts but may be applied to other quilts, T-shirts or other laundry issues.
Generally, wash your quilt in a washing machine in cold water. If the quilt is large... queen size or larger... we recommend washing it in a front loading machine or at a laundry mat in a large front loading machine.
We have found the quilts to be durable. We have one that was washed just about every weekend for the past 5 years and it is still in awesome condition!
Dry in a dryer like you would dry your clothes. You can also line dry it, but it may be a little crunchy as all line dried clothes tend to be.
The care of our pillows follows the same guidelines as for our quilts, as outlined above. The only difference in the care routine for pillows is that you must remove the pillow form before washing the pillow cover.
Once the cover is clean and dry, replace the pillow form in the pillow cover.
If your quilt has T-shirts you don’t trust to be 100% color fast, we recommend you wash your quilt with the Shout Color Catchers.
If you notice after the first wash that the dye is bleeding (the Color Catchers and the white T-shirts are the color of that one suspect T-shirt) don’t panic!
Wash the quilt right away again with more Color Catchers. Don’t let it dry. Keep it in the washing machine. If the bleeding is bad, it may take two or three additional washes. But by keeping it wet and using the Color Catchers, you should be able to get the excess dye out.
We actually tried this on a quilt. We purposely did not the set the dye on a red backing. When we washed the quilt, the backing fabric did bleed. Everywhere. The whole quilt was pink!
After 4 washes with the Color Catchers, the white T-shirts were back to white.
This principle can also be applied to the red socks in the white laundry load syndrome! No more pink underwear!
Note: Not a paid endorsements of products. We use this product every day in our own personal laundry.
T-shirts tend to get holes in them. It's their nature. If you start noticing holes in the quilt top, you need to stop their spread as soon as possible.
To do this, just apply a drop of Fray Check on the hole. Fray Check is a clear fabric glue that stops fabric from Fraying. Fray Check can be purchased at any fabric store such as JoAnns.
Fray Check is awesome stuff. It is also great for keeping buttons on T-shirts. Just put one drop of Fray Check on each button and they will not fall off!
Note: Not a paid endorsements of products. We use this product every day on our customers quilts as well as our own personal projects.
We try very hard to make sure that we have clipped all the threads from the quilt, you may notice when your quilt is new that we missed clipping a thread. Don’t worry, just clip the thread close to the top and the problem is solved.
If the fabrics used to make the quilt will either shrink or bleed if washed, it would then have to be dry-cleaned.
If a company tells you to dry-clean your quilt, it means they did not prewash the material on the back of the quilt.
Forever, I hope. Okay, I know nothing lasts forever. So then, I hope your quilt lasts a number of generations.
How long a T-shirt quilt lasts depends on a number of factors. Here's an article that goes into those factors in detail.
One way I know of is to vacuum the quilt top. This will remove dust and the like. It won't remove stains or freshen the quilt.
Jack B., Quilts with Borders, 4" Pieced + 2" Solid Border
Katy V., Standard T-shirt Quilt