Why I'm a Robert Kaufman Fan

In the past few months, I started to realize that I'm starting to recognize certain quilting cotton manufacturers.  First it was Moda, then Timeless Treasures, then Robert Kaufman.  There are others, but I won't bore you with listing them all.

Robert Kaufman, in particular, has a huge number of designs that I just adore - and I am mad for their metallic prints.  I've been buying their prints for a few years now, but only recently realized how much I've used them.

They aren't cheap - but oh my... the quality.

I've been making placemats with a couple of their "gum leaf" prints - such as the one in the photo above.  Placemats really need to take a good bit of washing, but metallic prints, well, that lovely shiny gold isn't going to be happy with a lot of warm-water washing and detergent.  I figured I'd just pamper the fabric and do cold wash (and line dry in the shade, of course).

Last weekend I decided to do a little test with some of the scraps from my recent project - and so I threw them into the wash with warm water and ordinary detergent - and then "TORTURED" the fabric by putting it in the dryer.

The result?

Look at the photo above.  The quilted bit on top has not been prewashed.  The unquilted strip at the bottom was subjected to the "torture".  There's absolutely no difference in them, other than the washed fabric is now softer.

I couldn't be more pleased.  I still intend to pamper those placemats, but if they happen to end up in a warm wash load by mistake, I'm glad to know that they'll come through OK.