Muslin is a 100% cotton cream fabric but it comes in different grades. You want to go to Joanne Fabrics, a local quilt shop or similar and look at the ends of the bolt or ask for quilting muslin. Muslin is generally less expensive then quilting cotton but buy the best you can afford. You can also buy quilters cotton good quality fabric and compare the weaves of both fabrics, they should be of equal weight. The benefit of using quilting cotton is it is easier to get a good quilting running stitch through the quilt sandwich.
There is also another method of hand quilting that is increasing in popularity called "big stitch" quilting. It uses perle cotton thread, a bigger needle and stitch. If you can few them, there are demos on YouTube for big stitch quilting.
Last edited by Tartan; 04-27-2015 at 07:58 PM.