Do I need to prewash linen for curtains?

[jilly]

I'm making fabric panel curtains -- linen on the top and home decor sateen on the bottom. I have JUST enough linen, because that's all they had at the fabric store, and so I'm not sure wether to prewash it or not. Is it going to shrink up too small? The fabric panel curtains will be behind our couch, which is a high use area (couch gets climbed on, moved to get toys out from behind them, used as a fort, etc) and I'm worried they're going to get dirty and then I"m not going to be able to wash them. But then I'm worried the fabric will shrink too small -- right now I have 5cm (2") of seam allowance to hem the edges, but I've heard linen frays a lot when you washed it.

Any ideas / experience with this kind of thing? Thanks in advance.

[erdbeerblau]

well … linen usually shrinks a lot … at least compared to other fabrics.
(and i'm pretty sure that the sateen won't really shrink …)

so if you plan to wash the end product, you definitly should prewash the fabric.
if you're worried about fraying in the washing machine you could sew around your fabric before. a narrow zig zag could even be hidden in the seam allowances later.

i'd rather buy enough of another fabric than sewing curtains that get ruined in the first wash …