washing sofs covers whats the worst that could happen?

[MikeLitorisBites]

Potty training dd and fabric sofa does not mix!

Instructions say best to get cleaned by professional but dont mention washing by machine.

No idea what the fabric actually is cant find a label anywhere and not on the website anymore.

Am I going to shrink them in the machine? I have visions of taking them off and not being able to get them back on.

That's the most likely problem, they might shrink!
Spot cleaning or dry cleaning is best.

i did mine on my old sofa and they shrank and lost alot of colour, looked rubbish

Mine say dry clean only but i wash them on the delicates setting at a low temperature and so far so good. They are cotton velvet though.

A lot of manufacturers put dry clean only labels on items that can be washed because it absolves them of any come back from wash day disasters.

I've done mine before, they do say dry clean only. I washed them on 30 and maybe they did shrink a bit. But it made the cushions look plumper, the fabric soon stretched back to normal though.

DH shrank all of our sofa cushions on a low wash once!! Unless they say they are machine washable, I wouldn't - it is an expensive mistake!!

Do you by any chance have a matching cushion. Try washing that first. If that's ok then you can move on to the main cover. Otherwise spot cleaning might be a better bet.
30degrees or less and handwash/ wool /silk detergent. Dry naturally and put back on when only just dry so they still have a bit of stretch.
I did this with our dry clean only sofa covers and it was fine.
If spot cleaning I use the vanish upholstery cleaner and that works pretty well.

Hand wash them, that shouldn't shrink them should it?

I've washed mine a couple of times, they do shrink a wee bit however its like a gym workout trying to get the cushions back into the covers!

Whatever you do, don't tumble dry them!

Years ago I washed some truly beautiful loose covers as my Liberty print ones had always been fine - they shrank and I couldn't get them back on the sofas.That was £800 up the shoot and that was in the 90s

I'm tempted to do mine, but I can't afford to replace them right now, so I'm not taking the risk. It's not just shrinkage I'd worry about, but also distortion of the fabric. Often fabrics shrink more on the warp than the weft ( or the other way round). That might not be awful if the pattern is cut absolutely square on the fabric,but if it's cut even slightly off grain or if you have lots of rounded bits, it'll look crap.

Also, lots of sofa covers are interfaced or interlinked to give the fabric more body. If your top fabric shrinks at a different rate or on a different angle from the interfacing, you're really in the shit.

I've done mine, they were cream but now have yellowy tinge.

i do mine on a cold wash, it's better than nothing, and hasn't shrunk them (yet)

Hmm, bit of a mixed bag then.

I think I'll get them done professionally when I get the carpets done.

Thanks all