I posted earlier about the stiffness of the inkjet printed EQ fabric here:

http://www.quiltingboard.com/t-66292-1.htm

I have printed out another of the same image on one of the Miracle fabric sheets from C. Jenkins, and the hand is much softer, though the color wasn't quite as vibrant, something easily fixed in future with Photoshop, now that I know that will happen. But before I try to quilt that one, I have a huge question.

For some reason today, I was looking at the EQ one in just the right light and noticed that that right light shone through most of the needle holes from the machine quilting. That prompted me to look another machine quilted piece I'm working on, and that one is doing the pretty much the same thing, just not as bad. That one is pieced from good quality commercial cotton fabrics.

Then I looked at a hand quilted piece, again pieced from good cotton fabrics, and while it's not nearly as bad, I can still see light through some of the needle holes. I'm afraid to look at some of my more heavily hand quilted pieces. I don't think I want to know.

The machine quilting on the EQ one was done with a #70 sharp needle, using 60 weight Mettler silk finish thread. The other machine quilted one was done with a #80 topstitch needle, using 40 weight Superior variegated thread. The hand quilted on was done with a piecemakers #12 between and Coats&Clark quilting thread.

The common denominator in all these quilts is the batt. I have been using Quilters Dream Cotton, Request for some years now. It's the thinnest they make.

So if any of you are also using this batting, would you hold your quilt up into the sunlight and let me know if you have visible holes too? And then maybe you can tell me what to do in future to avoid the needlepunched effect. Or maybe this is normal and nothing to worry about?

Thanks!