How to Choose a Quilting Fabric

I'm Aurora Sisneros. And I'm Kelly Pederson Hanson. And we're gonna talk a little bit today about the difference in fabrics that we use. Kelly is primarily a quilter and I primarily am a sewer so we use some different fabrics. I use a lot of stretch fabrics when I sew with to make maxi dresses and maxi skirts and pencil skirts and things like that and Kelly sticks with the quilting weight cottons-- Exactly.

And so there's a few differences in what we do to sew with these. Absolutely. I know that when I sew with knits, there's a whole lot of stretch involved and you don't really have to deal with that. So what are some of the tips that you have in dealing with cotton fabrics? Well cotton fabrics, I tend to like to use a universal needle.

And the sizes on the universal needles are very interesting because there's the metric number and then there's the number that we use for the United States. That tends to be the width of the shank but it also will dictate sometimes, the size of the needle hole. And so then you bring thread into the whole situation but we wanna make sure that when we're puncturing the fabric, that we're not leaving a hole, that our needle is going through it and it's just kind of separating the threads and then coming back through and is able to pick up the bobbin thread. Right, right. Most important factor.

So, primarily when you're using the quilting fabrics, you use a very sharp needle, would you say, right? Yeah, we do. With our quilting fabrics, we tend to stick with 100% cotton. We don't want it to stretch and the reason we don't want it to stretch is because we're gonna put it on a long arm machine and if you put it on long arm, it's going to stretch and it's gonna destroy your pattern. And we don't want that at all.

So we try to stay away from anything that has stretch to it. If we're going to use a stretchy fabric, we're going to use a product that would be like Shape-Flex-- Right, to take the stretch out of it. Yes, some kind of an interfacing that you would iron on. But you have to make sure that it's going to be substantial enough that you're still not gonna have that stretch issue when you get to the long arm machine. Right.

So in my case, when I am sewing with a stretch fabric, a lot of times stretch fabrics are easier to sew with simply because you don't have to do as much darting and pleating in order to make it fit the body. They're very forgiving, gravity kind of takes over and they drape really nicely. When we're sewing with a stretch fabric, however, I have to change from a sharp needle to a ballpoint needle or a stretch needle. Now, the difference between the sharp needle and the ballpoint needle is, if these are the fibers that I'm sewing with and my needle needs to go through them, a sharp needle will actually take up one of the threads and because there's Lycra built into a stretch fabric a lot of times, the thread itself will stretch like an elastic band. And so it will just bounce the needle right off of there without ever penetrating the fabric at all.

Causing skipped stitches. Exactly, and then you find that you haven't sewn very much of your project at all. So, the ballpoint needle, actually, it's just a blunt needle but because these are slippery fibers, they just go right around the needle when the needle pokes through. So they just kind of slip around and that will actually give you a better stitch while you're sewing with knits. We actually don't sew too much with sharp needles.

We use a quilting needle. Okay. It's got a little bit of a ballpoint to it. Got it. Yeah.

What's the purpose of that? Well, we wanna make sure that it doesn't actually break through because ours won't deflect. So the cotton will actually break the thread and then you'll find you will have holes and you can cause raveling. And so we don't want that at all. I think my favorite thing about the fabrics is a lot of times we use flannels.

Right. And I really like the cotton because the cotton, they're vivid. The colors are wonderfully vivid. They very much are. Yes, whereas opposed to the flannels, which are so comfy soft, they tend to be a little bit duller in their colors.

That's true, I've noticed that. The colorway, yes. But, it's always nice to maybe do the cotton, 100% cotton on one side of your quilt, and then perhaps do the flannel on the backside. But something I really enjoy, it's kind of like my guilty pleasure, minky on the back. Oh yeah, minky is lovely.

Yes. Very lovely. And you don't really have to worry about stabilizing minky when it's on the back of your quilt. Do you know why? No, I don't because I feel like minky is a little bit stretchy, actually.

It's a little slinky and it moves around, so how do you deal with that? True, what we do is when I'm loading it onto the long arm machine and quilting it, I make sure that the stretchy side is going from left to right because then the only thing that's going to be doing is holding it with the clamps. And we're gonna have the batting that's gonna take up some of that too. So because we clamp the backing and the batting together, and then we make sure that the part that's not stretchy on minky goes from roller to roller. So we're not stretching it that way.

That makes sense. Yes, and it makes a wonderful product and it's very, very snuggly soft, just like the flannels would be. Right. So for stretchier fabrics, it's pretty easy to find where the grain line is because you have a stretch. Most of the stretchy fabrics are a one-way stretch.

You can also have a two-way stretch but you kind of have to look and see which direction it is. How do you tell a grain line on a quilting fabric? Well a quilting fabric is quite easy to find the grain line. One of the ways that you can tell is you would take your fabric and hold it up and if you had a grain line, like there is an edge right here. And I'm holding it up and can you see how there's, you've got some extra fabric there?

It's not laying flat, right? Right. So you take and you kind of move it along with that selvage, and now see how it lies flat? Yeah. Now what you're going to do is you're going to lie it down on your cutting mat and you're going to put the rulers, our long rulers that we have, you're gonna line this up with one of the solid lines that's on it and then you're going to just slide that part completely off, cut it off.

And now you've got a straight edge. Now that is your straight of grain. Oh, perfect, that's pretty easy to find. Another thing that you can do, but yes because now it is on straight of grain. Another thing you can do, and a lot of people don't like to do this, and I don't care to do this unless I'm doing a backing, is I will make a little slit in the fabric and just tear it.

But the problem is, you have to make sure you an extra inch or so on each edge because it's going to ravel a little bit, it's going to loosen up that edge. Doesn't really matter, that edge is gonna end up being cut off anyway in the quilting process. But it is a way to find your straight of grain. One thing we don't like to do is cut across the grain because you're on the bias and it's very difficult to sew a quilt. We have ways to do it but bias piecing is very difficult.

Yeah, and then it gives you a stretch that you might not really want. No, it could distort the fabric. Right. So I find it interesting when I cut my knits and I'm making a skirt, for example, I don't have to finish a hem if I don't want to. I can just cut off the bottom of my knits and it doesn't need to be finished, it won't fray like a woven would.

Oh, that's sweet. Yeah, so it kind of makes it nice, although it can make you a lazy sewer so I would suggest doing a hem on your skirt anyway. I don't know that I would. There's lots of ins and outs in quilting. Yeah, we always tend to like to cut on the bias if we're doing our bindings, however.

Right, that way it can go around a curve too and we do that in sewing if we want to do a bias binding, you know, around a potholder or something like that. The bias just stretches so nicely when you cut it across. And just in case there are, people are not aware of what the bias is, would you like to explain that? When you take a woven fabric such as this one, now, when you're sewing with knits, you don't really have to worry about it. But, a woven fabric has threads running this way and this way and you'll notice that if I pull this, it has a little bit of stretch that way.

And it has even more stretch this way. But if I turn this like this and I pull diagonally, look how much stretch I get. So the way a fabric is when it's woven like this, the easiest way to get a better fit, and we do this a lot in sewing when we're using a cotton or a woven like this, is we do things on the bias so that way it will fit the body better because it will stretch in order to contour. So it's an important fact to know. If you tend to be a sewer and you want to try quilting, you'll wanna know that you don't wanna play with that bias.

That's a true statement. True. Yes, make sure and cut on the straight line when you're doing a quilt. Exactly, and if you're a quilter and you're thinking about sewing, it's okay. We're giving you permission.

That's true, absolutely. Absolutely. Can you think of any other areas in quilting or sewing where we would be leery of a fabric? Do you ever use fleece for anything? You know, I don't tend to use fleece, I tend to use cottons if I'm going to do anything structured just because it needs to breathe.

Yeah, when you're wearing it, you know, it needs to be cool and cotton is the best sort of thing for that. Usually a cotton blend is the best, that way it doesn't wrinkle if it has a little poly in it. Right, and I don't think that fleece either has a straight of grain because you look for the stretch if you're gonna make mittens or hats or jackets or whatever and you determine where you need that stretch to be. Right. My suggestion is just go out and get a little bit of everything and start to sew things that you love so that you can learn.

Yes.