Fabric is the largest cost in a quilt and the one that most decides how it looks and ages. The choice comes down to fibre, weave, weight, colour and scale, and the aim is for every piece in the top to behave the same way when sewn, pressed and washed.
Why quilting cotton
Most quilts are made from 100 percent cotton, sold as quilting cotton or patchwork cotton. It is a plain weave of about 60 by 60 threads per inch, medium weight, with little stretch along the threads and a stable hand. It presses to a crisp crease, holds a seam line, does not fray badly and is available in thousands of prints. Cottons of similar weight cut and sew the same way, so a block with points that meet will lie flat.
Alternatives have different behaviour.
| Fabric | Behaviour |
|---|---|
| Flannel | Soft, thicker, stretches slightly, seams are bulky |
| Linen and linen blends | Crisp, loose weave, frays more, relaxes in wash |
| Batik | Dense, tight weave, holds a crease, needles drag a little |
| Solids | Show every stitch and every pressing line |
| Voile and lawn | Light, need a lighter batting and thread |
| Home decor | Heavy, stiff, difficult to quilt by machine |
Mixing weights within one top causes puckers and uneven strain at the seams, since the lighter fabric stretches more. If a quilt includes flannel, use flannel throughout, or at least keep the weights as similar as you can.
Judging quality
Hold the fabric to the light. A good quilting cotton has an even weave and you can barely see through it. Loosely woven fabric with gaps distorts when cut and sewn. Rub it between your fingers: it should feel smooth, not stiff from finishing chemicals or thin. Fold it and check the crease it takes. Prints with small off-grain patterns, where the printing is not square to the threads, will distort the block; look at stripes, which should run parallel to the selvage.
Colour and value
Value is how light or dark a fabric is, and it does more work than hue. Quilts that glow usually have a clear range of lights, mediums and darks. Take a photo of the fabrics in black and white on your phone; if they all turn the same grey, the quilt will look flat. Patterns of pieced blocks, such as the Pinwheel or the Churn Dash, depend on the contrast between two values to show the shape.
A basic palette is 5 to 8 fabrics: a few lights, a few mediums, one or two darks and a fabric that supplies a spark of a contrasting colour. Choose a focus print first, since it sets the colours, then pull colours out of it.
Scale
Vary the size of the print. A palette of all large florals looks chaotic and large prints get lost in small pieces. Mix large, medium and small prints, and include at least one tone-on-tone or solid to rest the eye. The smaller the pieces in a block, the smaller the print should be. In a four patch with 2 inch squares, a print with a motif 6 inches across will show only a fragment.
Directional prints
Stripes and one-way prints need planning. If they run the same way in every block, the pieces must be cut in the same direction, which uses more fabric. The yardage calculator in the tools section gives fabric per colour for a quilt of squares, and you should add 10 percent for directional fabrics and for matching.
Precuts and what they leave out
Precuts such as charm packs and jelly rolls give a coordinated range in pieces already cut, and they suit scrap-look quilts. The precuts database lists the dimensions of each type. Their downsides: the pieces are cut with pinked edges, they may shrink a little and they limit the sizes that work; a 5 inch charm square gives a 4.5 inch finished piece after a quarter inch seam on each side, so the final block sizes have to accommodate that.
Backing
Wide backing fabric, 108 inches, removes the seam that would run down the middle of a back made from standard 44 inch widths. It is usually a little coarser and costs more per yard, but a seamless back avoids the extra work of piecing. For a quilt of a size where a seam is needed, run it across the quilt instead of down its length.
Prewashing
There are two camps. Washing before cutting removes surplus dye and shrinks the cloth so the finished quilt does not change size later. Not washing keeps the crispness that helps with cutting and piecing, and precuts cannot be washed without fraying. If you combine a strongly dyed red with a pale fabric, test with a small piece in warm water and a white cloth; if the water is tinted, wash the fabric until it runs clear, and add a colour-catching sheet.
Buying enough
Buy all the fabric for one project in one go, since prints can go out of print, and dye lots differ. Calculate the amount from the quilt size and the pieces, then add about 10 percent for errors. The yardage calculator gives a figure for the top, backing, batting and binding, and the blocks database shows the typical units in a block so you can count the pieces.