At 10:40 AM -0600 3/5/06, Betsy Marshall wrote:
My information is that dry cleaning helps preserve the fabric treatments used by the manufacturer- either fabric or clothing processes; so fabric of wool, linen, silk or combinations thereof, _can_ be washed, just be prepared for the size/hand/texture to change. (Personally I toss it all in the washer on cold and let the chips, er, scraps fall where they may.)
My philosophy is to give the finished garment a cleaning treatment that's one step gentler than the washing I gave the fabric before I cut it out. I pretty much machine wash all yardage as soon as I get it home and the edges zigzagged.
This has worked a lot better for some things than others. I've not had any problems with linen or silk, but I've learned to be more careful about wool, especially about tumble drying it. I had a wool Elizabethan gown (and I can now boast that it was custom-made for me by Margo -- yes, THAT Margo, of Margo's patterns <g>) and she washed my wool yardage on hot, _three_ times before she cut it out. And I washed it on cold and dried it on barely lukewarm, and it DID shrink, almost three inches in length after half a dozen washings. :(
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