In a message dated 7/11/2005 8:44:09 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

I wash  my cotton velveteens and cotton velvets all the time.  Why?


I used to get [when I lived in Greensboro, NC] heavy cotton velvet "scraps"  
free from a company called SECCOA [it's an anagram for....something] that 
makes  theatre curtains and "blacks". Since the lengths used to make the 
curtains 
are  the height of whatever proscenium they are to decorate, if there was a 
flaw in  the fabrics say 6 yards into a 10 yard piece for a 30' proscenium, 
that 
piece  would get cut off and become a 6 yard scrap!!!! I'd go get lengths of 
4 to 6  yards usually. "Thank goodness we don't have to lug them to the 
dumpster" the  girls would say as I came to haul these enormous scraps off.
 
Anyway, I'd always wash the heavy velvet. It got out a salt treatment put  in 
the fabric to make it fire proof and the nap would fluff up beautifully. It's 
 the kind of velvet whose color changes an entire shade from nap up to  nap 
down. [Many rayon velvets don't seem to do this.] Better cut everything out  in 
one direction!
 
I had a steamer to "iron" the velvet.
 
I might wash a rayon velvet to fluff it up. But thank god for the  steamer!
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