A large part of the pleasure of quilting is gathering the materials that you will use. There are two methods: you can either choose the pattern first or the fabric first or if you are an experienced quilter, you can ignore the suggestions on the pattern and use whatever fabric you please. However, this is a big step that the novice should not take lightly
Most quilters will opt for cotton, 100% cotton, because it is the easiest cloth to use, is pleasant to deal with, is washable and is readily available in different patterns and weights.
In fact, you cannot go wrong with cotton, whereas most people do not want anything to do with man-made fabrics and silk and satin are both a problem to use and expensive.
When you go into a quilting or craft shop, you will see bolts and bolts (rolls and rolls) of 100% cotton fabric, so choice will rarely be a difficulty. In the beginning, a tip is to use tightly woven fabric, because loosely-woven fabric can ‘pull’ and distort leaving unsightly ‘holes’, which you cannot mend because they are not breaks.
You will have to put a great deal of effort into your quilt so it is worth spending some time on planning your quilt and the pattern and the design that you would like. The colour is especially important because you or your customer will have to live with it for many years.
Strive to use contrast as much as you can, but that is outside the range of this article, so you will have to look it up if you do not understand it already. However, in essence it involves using warm colours like red, yellow, orange and brown with cooler colours like blue, green and violet. You can contrast black with white very effectively as well.
You could also attempt contrasting different textures. Smooth, coarse, high grain and low grain, high density and low density cottons can be mixed to dazzling effect with a bit of consideration and practice. The same can be said of the pattern on the cloth. Therefore, you can alternate or mix colour, grain and pattern.
When you get brave enough, you can add other types of cloth too such as velvet or taffeta. Whichever textiles you decide to use, you must test them for shrinkage.
Take a swatch, measure it, wash it as it must be washed, dry it out, iron it and then measure it again. This will tell you how much that cloth shrinks, so you can write that down in a notebook.
Pre-shrink all fabrics that are going to shrink before sewing blocks of themt into our quilt or you will have big problems later. When you have washed and dried the block of fabric, it must be ironed.
If you make a decision to use a fabric that needs dry cleaning, you will have to make certain that anybody who buys it from you knows this. It would be a sensible idea to embroider a label saying as much and attaching it to the quilt so that neither you nor anyone else will forget.
Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on a number of topics, but is now involved with the waterproof mattress pads. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Egg Crate Mattress Pad For Sale.