All Fabric is Not Created Equal!
September 19, 2025
What is the difference between fabrics bought at Wal-Mart, Hobby Lobby, and a specialty quilt store. There is definitely a difference. Does this mean that you
cannot make a good quality quilt from Wal-Mart fabric? Absolutely not. I’ve seen some lovely quilts made using fabric from both Wal-Mart and Hobby Lobby. I
regularly peruse the fabric department at both of these places and have sewn many quilts from fabric I bought there.
That said, quilting fabric made of 100% cotton is definitely of a higher quality. It has a higher thread count (threads per inch) allowing for a tighter weave
which makes it more dense. You can actually feel the difference when you touch the fabric. Also, quilt-quality fabric is made using longer staple cotton
fibers so it is less likely to fray and allows more precision in the cutting of pieces. All of these make your quilt more durable in standing up to daily wear
and tear. Consider the toddler that drags his/her quilt all over the house, using it for multiple purposes.
I did a little rearranging today and brought in some fall quilts. If you like Halloween, check out the Owl O'Ween quilt.
Choosing Fabrics
September 13, 2025
Quilters love fabric. They especially love unique and new styles of fabrics. They have no qualms about traveling great distances to find the best fabric at
the best price and it is not unusual for them to track the locations of quilt stores when they take a trip so they can stop at all of them on the way.
Sometimes the vacation is planned with the quilt stores in mind. Don’t believe me? Ask my husband, who had to trek all over Hungarian, Austrian, and German
villages in search of the fabric stores when we took a river cruise last year. Sometimes, the vacation IS the quilt store!
Fabric companies release fabrics as collections to make it easier to find complimentary pieces with which to make a quilt. Most collections have about 20
coordinating fabrics, however, it is really fun to wander around shopping different collections for a project. We can’t help ourselves when we fall in love
with a piece of fabric. We have to have it. But if you don’t have a project in mind, what do you do? How much do you get? I usually buy a yard. I like making
Three Yard Quilts so I know if I set this aside, I’ll eventually find two other yards to use with it. Hence The Stash!
Last week I had two patterns for which I want to purchase fabric. One of them required 4 fabrics of one color, but with different patterns and three fabrics
of a second color but with different patterns. I went through three different sets of color pallets before finally settling on orange and green. Picking out
fabrics is one of the most fun parts of quilting, but it can be time consuming. Not that we quilters mind spending hours in a fabric store. It’s our idea of
a perfect day. Sometimes we travel great distances to find good fabric stores. For example, I drove five hours to Arkansas to visit my favorite fabric store
last week and spent a good five hours wandering through the store and picking fabrics. During the first three hours, I finished my first wave of fabric
selection… backing fabrics and flannel yardage. Then I took a lunch break and went back for wave 2… fabrics for new quilt tops. I spent all day “playing” with
fabrics. Even better, I had a quilting friend with me. It was a great day.
The first picture shows six fabrics I picked from a collection. You'll notice that there are big prints, textured prints, and small prints, There were also
stripes and dots, and other floral prints, but I only needed six (the seventh bolt is a random extra.)
What comes first -- the fabric or the pattern?
September 6, 2025
Nothing lights up a quilter like the promise of a fabric store that specializes in quilting. We can get lost for hours in the colors, patterns, and beauty of
fabric collections. Picking out fabrics is by far one of the most fun aspects of quilting. This is the reason quilters have such a big fabric stash, but,
like anything else, fabric collections have seasons. What is available one year, won’t necessarily be available the next, so I’ve found that it’s best to
just buy it if I love it. Eventually I’ll find a project for which to use it. I’ve been disappointed a few times when I waited too late to order certain
fabrics and then couldn’t get them at all.
Often it is a pattern that catches our eye which sends us to the fabric store. There are thousands of different quilt patterns available. Some are expensive,
some reasonable, some are even free. In each of those categories, there are patterns that are very user friendly, some that expect prior knowledge of
quilting, and some that are so poorly written, even experienced quilters shy away from them. If you quilt for even a short time, you’ll start recognizing
which designers have the best instructions—and which have the worst. Sometimes that makes the difference between a successful and enjoyable quilt-making
experience and a miserable one that can doom any future quilt-making.
