Originally Posted by Evie
Any tips, pros and cons, as to light, medium or heavy starch?
i was taught to starch the fabric until it had the consistency of construction paper. that is a fairly heavy starching! My teacher was a prize winning master quilter and she shared with us that she actually sent fabric to the dry cleaners for starching (not cleaning...just heavy starching) b/c she did not like doing it herself. She was more into the piecing and quilting part - and her work was amazing!
If your fabrics are heavily starched, (and you will find a level of starching that
you are comfortable with), then they will layer together for piecing easily, the bias edges of pieces won't stretch as much, and when your pattern or intuition calls for seams to be pressed, you can usually use a fairly light press with your iron or even with your finger to get seams to cooperate.
Just like when you starch a shirt and wear it, and it feels "less starchy" as the day progresses, I find that fabrics act the same way. So heavily starched fabrics don't feel heavily starched by the time you are getting around to the quilting.
Starch also seems to help marking tools "sit" on the fabric and rinse out more easily, it seems to me. that could be just my imagination.
Hope this helps. please share your experience with us when you are done! ;)