Originally Posted by
MarthaT
So, is there a right and wrong side of Hobbs 80/20? (Is that the same as Hobbs Heirloom?)
I am mostly a hand quilter and love Hobbs Polydown for hand quilting, but those occasions when I use cotton, I find Warm and Natural hard to needle. So have bought some Hobbs Heirloom to try. Maybe I had the wrong side up on the W&N.
I also prefer cotton for DSM quilting, which I rarely do because I love the therapy of hand quilting.
Most Hobbs products are bonded fibers instead of needle punched like W&N/W&W. So, it doesn't have a scrim & therefore either side can go up. The ones labeled "with scrim" should have the smoother, slicker side facing down.
It's the scrim that makes W&N/W&W tougher to hand quilt. They are nice because of how flat they are, but that scrim is tricky for sure. With hand quilting, you are moving the needle in both directions equally so the direction of the scrim shouldn't make as much difference as it does on a machine.
Another possibility if you want an inexpensive all cotton product is Warm & Plush. It's 50% thicker than W&N so it gives fantastic definition to the quilting but it doesn't have a scrim so it's much easier to push a needle through. I use it for both machine & hand quilting. The only downside is that due to its thickness, I cannot load very many stitches on my needle at once, even with long needles like ThimbleLady's. I bought mine at Walmart.com. For more money, I love the thinner Hobbs Organic Cotton, but that's a splurge for sure.