homespuns are not always plaid- homespuns are always a woven fabric and behaves much like flannel in quilts- make wonderful quilts and are very nice to work with. the shrinkage is more than regular cottons- just like flannels. as for shirtings- shirting cottons tend to be a much lighter weight fabric than what we normally choose for quilting- that does not mean they can not be used- they are just a lighter weight fabric. sometimes if i am mixing fabrics and want to include any shirtings i just use a fusable interfacing to give them a bit more weight