Was thinking about buying white cotton sheet for use in blocks. Is 100 % combed cotton sateen OK in quilts? They look a bit shiny to me and have a silky feel---400 thread. :?: :?:

If you like the look and feel of it, try it with some scraps and make a few sample blocks... Sometimes the best way to know, is to actually try using it :D:D:D

Actually, that thread count is really high for quilting. Batiks are the tightest weave usually used for quilting and they are between 200 and 250. I think they would work all right for piecing, but quilting it will be the nightmare. When I quilt batiks on my longarm, I am putting in a new needle with every other roll because the weave of the batik is so tight that it dulls the needle and the needle starts to tear the threads.

I know that for my sheets I LOVE the 1,000 thread count...won't be quilting with that material though!

Thanks---that is sort of what I thought.

I have some Egyptian cotton sheets and they work wonderfully in my quilts. Both for blocks and backing!

I use sheets for quilting all the time. Some difficulties I have encountered are:
- sometimes they fray while piecing (the shinier fabrics seem to do this, for some reason...)
- sometimes the threadcount is too high and they are hard to push the needle through. That is a pain if you are hand piecing or hand quilting. It makes my machine angry. Also, if you make a mistake, you can't smooth the needle holes out!

On the other hand, sometimes they work great.

Usually I cut off a corner of the sheet and just play with the fabric a bit. If there is a problem with fraying, then I use it for a backing. If it is too dense, well, it just goes back in the cupboard until I can figure out what else to do with it!