Is it necessary to pre-wash and heat-set a wall hanging that I am simply stenciling with Dye-na-Flow?

Name: Phyllis

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Neopaque is an opaque fabric paint, so white and light colors can cover a dark or colored background.

Country or region: Texas

Message: Is it necessary to pre-wash and set a wall hanging that I am simply stenciling with Dye-na-Flow? Since it is not a garment, and will not see wear and tear, can I skip this step? Thank you so much!

I wonder about treatments that may have been applied to the fabric before you purchased it. It's possible that surface treatments have been applied, with the assumption (by the manufacturers) that they will only be temporary, and yet they might contain chemicals that would tend to degrade the fabric with time.

For example, formaldehyde is commonly found on many purchased garments, and for health reasons should be washed out before the garment is worn for the first time. Formaldehyde is found in different textile treatments, including permanent press finishes and the cationic fixatives that are used to increase the washfastness of cheap dyes.

Water-soluble sizing, if thick enough, could interfere with the bonding of the paint's acrylic binder to the fabric, and might later be affected by humidity. Chances are probably fairly low that the results would be very bad, though.

Problems are less likely if you use fabric that was sold as PFD (Prepared For Dyeing), PFP (Prepared For Printing), or RTD (Ready To Dye). Although most fabric artists prefer to wash their fabrics before dyeing or painting them, and the sellers advise that it's best to prewash all fabrics, you will usually be fine if you skip washing PFD, PFP, or RTD fabrics. You can buy PFD fabrics from Dharma Trading Company, Testfabrics Inc., and Jacquard Products' SilkConnection.com.

If the fabric was sold without any of these three claims on its label (or on the end of the bolt the fabric was sold from), then it would be safer to wash the fabric before painting on it.

None of this matters much if you won't be keeping the wall hanging for a long time, say if it's for a banner for a one-time-only event. If you might want it to stay looking like new for years, then pre-washing would be safer, though it's impossible to predict how big a problem it will be if you don't prewash the fabric.

As far as heat-setting the paint afterwards is concerned, I don't think you'll have a problem with skipping that step, for a wall hanging that will never be washed. In fact, if they are allowed to dry long enough, fabric paints tend to become permanent even without heat-setting.

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Posted: Monday - May 23, 2011 at 03:16 PM

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Is it necessary to pre-wash and heat-set a wall hanging that I am simply stenciling with Dye-na-Flow?

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