Originally Posted by
Shelbie
I am a longarm quilter and use sheets as backing all of the time with no problems. My APQS Lenni can not tell the difference between sheets and quilting fabric. I quilt them all, all cotton, poly/cotton and flannel. I won’t use microfibre sheets as I don’t like the feel of them. Sheets do not warp or break my needle and my needle has not broken or warped the sheet. For me, sheets make a very affordable backing for quilts that are going to be used every day. You would need to choose a sheet that wasn’t as tightly woven for hand quilting or say a lot of bad words trying to get your needle through easily.
Shelby you misunderstood my post. The needle doesn't break and nothing is warped. Sheets are woven. Warp is the term used for the threads that are mounted lenghwise on the loom and weft are threads that weave over and under the warp threads which forms the fabric. All woven fabric is made this way. It takes a very trained eye and you have to be looking for it specifically but any longarm needle, which is much larger as you know, can, and often will break either the warp or weft thread rather than sliding between them as most needles do with normal quilting fabric. This is especially true of high thread count sheets which is probably why many people, especially longarmers don't like to use them. You won't see a hole but if you examine carefully you will see what often looks like a "run" in the fabric. Much like us old school garment sewers would find the straight of grain by pulling a single thread. This only happens with high count sheets. Next time you quilt using a high count sheet examine the back very carefully with magnifyer, I suspect you will find a few.
There is no reason you can't continue to use sheets but if you quilt for others it would be a disservice to your clients not to mention the possiblity of this happening and let them make the decision. If you only quilt for yourself and don't care, then it doesn't matter. The damage is so minute it really won't effect how the quilt wears over time. It may be called out in a show.