Washing and Cutting Burlap

This post is sponsored by BurlapFabric.com. Check them Out, they are awesome! 

All photos, content, tutorials, techniques and opinions are my own.

I want to thank all of you for your sweet comments and emails, and for following my blog! 

It completely made my week!

I wanted to take some pictures of my home today to post, but we had a big storm roll in, so it will have to wait until next week. I tried to take these pictures in the brightest part of my house, but even these still turned out a little dark and muddy.

So, instead, today lets talk burlap! I have a couple posts coming up, of projects using burlap. But, first, I wanted to share how I prepare my burlap for use. It can be stinky and hard to work with, so I will share with you a couple of things that I do to make it more user-friendly.

First, I wash my burlap in the washing machine. I use about half the regular amount of liquid detergent I would use in a normal load, and I add a splash of bleach to the bleach cup of my washer. I set my machine to the delicate cycle, warm water, and let it do its thing. If I am not happy with the smell, still, when it is finished, I will run it through once more. It will not get rid of the smell completely, but it will decrease it very significantly.

{Update: I have done this with both the blonde (pictured) and the natural (light brown) burlap several times. The natural does get a little more fuzzy after washing than the blonde does. I just take it outside... shake, shake, shake it... and run a lint roller over it... and it works wonderfully! Not only does it take a lot of the smell away, it makes it a lot softer. Soooooo worth the extra effort! And, just to warn you, you're about to see my scrub bottoms in these pictures}

Then I pull it out and drape it over two chairs to dry.

After it dries, I Iron my burlap to get all of the wrinkles out of it. Depending on your iron, the method you use here will vary from mine, but I will show you how I do it and you can adjust as you need to. I use a medium high setting. On my Iron, it says "Silk." You want to make sure it is not on any of the automatic steam settings. I have learned from experience that too much of the water or steam will yellow your burlap and develop a weird film on your iron. Instead I just iron and do one squirt of the steam in one big motion over a large area of my fabric, following it up with a lot of steamless strokes.

After you are finished ironing your fabric, it is time to even out the ends which will have frayed somewhat in the washer.

Locate a spot where you would like to trim your fabric back to and make a tiny cut.

Then pull out one of the threads, slowly and carefully.

It should pull from the entire length of your piece.

This will leave a perfect little line to use as a guide for cutting.

Cut along its entire length, being careful not to cut the lines above and below it.

When you are finished, you are left with a perfectly straight edge!

Repeat on the other side and you are ready to start your burlap projects!

Easy, Right!

If you would like to see my DIY Pottery Barn Burlap Table Runner Tutorial, Click HERE. Trust me, it is gorgeous and super easy! 

You may also enjoy these burlap posts {just click on the picture to take you there}:

Pottery Barn Burlap Table Runner Tutorial

Pottery Barn Frame and Burlap Mat

On another note...

These pictures are pretty blurry and dark, but I wanted to share.

This is what happens when daddy is in charge of getting Ella dressed!

I don't know if it is the fact that I dress her up all of the time or what, but it didn't phase her a bit!

Funny Daddy.

I hope you all have a great weekend!

My Giveaway is open until Sunday night, so make sure you enter~!

Thanks again for reading!