A large part of the pleasure of quilting is gathering the materials that you will use. There are two methods: you can either select the pattern first or the fabric first or if you are an experienced quilter, you can disregard the recommendations on the pattern and use whatever cloth you please. However, this is a big step that the novice must not take lightly

Most quilters will opt for cotton, 100% cotton, because it is the easiest fabric to use, is pleasant to handle, is washable and is readily available in different patterns and weights.

In fact, you cannot go wrong with cotton, whereas most people do not really want anything to do with man-made textiles and silk and satin are both a problem to use and costly.

When you go into a quilting or craft shop, you will see bolts and bolts (rolls and rolls) of 100% cotton material, so choice will rarely be a difficulty. In the beginning, a tip is to use tightly woven cloth, because loosely-woven cloth can ‘pull’ and distort leaving unsightly ‘holes’, which you cannot mend because they are not breaks.

You will have to put a lot of work into your quilt so it is worth spending some time on planning your quilt and the pattern and the design that you want. The colour is particularly important because you or your customer will have to live with it for several 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 endeavor 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 thought and practice. The same can be said of the pattern on the fabric. Therefore, you can alternate or mix colour, grain and pattern.

When you get brave enough, you can add other kinds of cloth as well such as velvet or taffeta. Whichever fabrics 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 textiles 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 should be ironed.

If you choose to use a fabric that needs dry cleaning, you will have to make sure that anybody who buys it from you knows this. It would be a good 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 variety of subjects, but is now concerned with the waterproof mattress pads. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Egg Crate Mattress Pad For Sale.

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