I sew a lot of jersey knit fabric, and it’s much easier to sew a skirt from an upcycled T-shirt when the T-shirt fabric doesn’t curl up all fiddly-like.
Spray starch is the solution for lightly, naturally, temporarily (and cheaply!) stiffening knit fabrics while you sew them. The spray starch will wash out in the regular wash that you put your finished project into, and will leave your jersey knit neatly and regularly stitched.
Spray starch, depending on the brand, can be quite expensive, but if you’re a regular consumer you’ll be thrilled (or horrified) to see how cheaply and easily you can make your own version.
Frankly, homemade spray starch is even better than the store-bought kind because it’s completely customizable. If you want a light starch, you can make it. If you want a heavy starch, well, you can make that, too!
Read on for the easy recipe, and options for customizing it to fit your exact sewing needs:
Start your recipe with plain distilled water. The water where I live is hard, and so I always worry about water stains on my pristine white fabric, so I use distilled water in my iron and for laundry recipes like these.
To each cup of water, add between one teaspoon and three teaspoons of cornstarch, depending on how stiff you’d like your spray starch to be. One teaspoon will give a very light starch, suitable for a child’s dress shirt, while three teaspoons is a heavy starch, and what I use when I’m stitching jersey knit.
This is a raw recipe, so it doesn’t require cooking at all. Some spray starch recipes call for boiling the water, but all you have to do with this recipe is funnel it into a spray bottle–simple, quick, and easy to do while little kids pester you.
I believe the theory behind cooking the spray starch is to help it keep longer, so rethink this particular raw recipe if that’s a concern to you, but during times when I haven’t sewn regularly (can you imagine?), I’ve kept this particular spray starch recipe perfectly fine in its spray bottle for several months with no spoilage.
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Thank you for this beautiful site. Can you recommend a preservative that can be added to starch made out of cassava pulp? Cassava starch, which is found mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa ferments faster than corn starch.
Acho (Nigeria)
I’ve tried essentially this same recipe, but found that it caused a brown build up on my iron. If I didn’t watch and clean the iron frequently, it would transfer brown streaks onto my fabric. Any suggestions of what I should do differently avoid this problem?
Maybe iron the starched fabrics over the baking paper or another fabric? But I think it would take longer time to get dry.
You may just need to clean your iron frequently. There are pros and cons to pretty much everything, and I’m so paranoid that I’d probably be asking myself, “What weird chemicals are in store-bought spray starch that keeps that build-up from happening?”. At least with elbow grease, you know what’s in it!
Hi – I’ve been using a similar recipe but I cook mine to ensure the cornstarch dissolves. To the person who asked about brown streaks. I have a sneaky suspicion that comes from burning the starch. I could be wrong but my experience has been that my starch always turns out a cloudy white color. But, one time, I let it boil too long on the stove (I forgot it was on there) and it turned out brown. For what it’s worth…
Thank you so much for this incredibly simple, yet very effective recipe! I just finished starching a few white shirts and it worked perfectly!!! I mixed 2tsp in one cup of distilled water and ironed with settings between medium and high, also no steam. There was no buildup at all on my iron and absolutely no brown streaks on the fabric. Hopefully it will keep being this good. I have a feeling that a slightly lower temperature and the absence of steam might give better results.
I wonder if using distilled water could also be important to avoiding the brown stains that some people mention?
Julie, I think the distilled water is much better for ironing in general because of the absence of minerals. It is possible that the starch and mineral in regular tap water bond and create brown stains more easily. My mom has always used distilled water in her many irons, which makes them work much better and last longer.
Brown streaks: I have had the same problem. I do quite well with having a moist cotton cloth at side (folded in layers), soaked with a vinegar-water-solution (appr. 50:50) and wrung out thoroughly. As soon as I have the feeling that the iron’s surface isn’t smooth and clean, I just go over the cloth with it. By the way, the vinegar solution cleans out the tank of my steam iron perfectly as well.
Good look,
Barbara
Can I use arrowroot starch, instead of cornstarch?