And Then There were 4

The 4th flannel gown is finished. And the other 3 flannels are washed. And the 5 cotton fabrics as well, and all but one dry and folded.

I wash fabric before I use it, if it is going to do anything weird I want it to happen before I put a lot of work into it. And this caution has served me well in the case of the purple flannel, after it was woven it was stretched along the bias, and wound onto the blot, had I sewed it up with out washing it, the stretched fabric could have hung crooked for the rest of the life of the nightgown. Because I washed the fabric the problem became immediately apparent because it could not be folded lengthwise with out getting wrinkles that could not be gotten out.

This morning I tore one of the ends, to get the straight of the grain, folded the length of the material in half lengthwise, and basted the fabric across the torn end and along the selvage which lined the material up resulting in about 14 inches longer on one side of the end which had not been torn. That was a great deal of distortion. because it was so much I put it back into the washer, and once washed got it out and smoothed it out by hand and left it on the cutting table to dry. It is now straight and I will be able to cut and sew it without any problem, tomorrow, perhaps.