Last winter I was making a quilt and bought some red marbled fabric at Joann's and have been in love with those marbled fabrics (in all the colors) since. All of them wash and dry stiffer than other quilting fabrics (except the pale blue) but I still love them. All of them have these little white runs on the right side of the fabric but I love them. They're very stiff on the quilts (especially when I used them in pillow shams--yikes!) but I love them still. And now, I just bought a dark blue-gray and I noticed that on the wrong side, in some spots, the grain looks warped...but I still love them! Why must I be addicted to these damaged fabrics?? Any thoughts on keeping them but making sure they're still around for my grandkids?? (I do cut around the spots that I notice are really warped or runny)

I am wondering if the spots you are seeing are where they are making the fabric darker, so the dyes are heavier. If they start with the lighter colors and build up on it , it may appear to distort the fabric and make it stiffer . I have some of those and they seem fine to me I just figured they were that way because of the coloring process

I have some green Christmas fabric that is stiff but I love it also, I know the marbled you are talking about, and I know which drawer I have it in :roll:

perhaps the fabric with it's slight imperfections gives more of a homey feel to it. Like quilts my grandmother used to make some of the colors look faded, but, they give a warm feeling.

Some of those fabrics have personality. I like them too.

I bought a whole bolt of blue mottled with little white stars in it at Marshall Dry Goods for a $1 a pound (about 4 yds is in a pound) In some places different dyes have run out giving it a totally different look. I was THRILLED!!! I got 4-6 different prints on one bolt of fabric and yet they're all coordinated.
So no, I don't think there's anything wrong with liking damaged fabric. Perhaps it the challenge to see what useful thing can be made from it.

It may be that your quilting purpose is to rescue fabric and find ways to make it useful.

There are no bad fabrics only purchasers that are limiting their personal horizons.

break out the boots everyone, it's gonna get deep. LOL

The white runs are actual, bunched white threads on top of the fabric that leave it bumpy in that spot and on the back the threads of the grains are actually warped in a squiggly, rather than straigt, manner but only in spots the size of a dime or nickel. But the fabrics are marbled so they may be stiffer with the added dyes. The lighter blue doesn't have as much marbled effect and that's the one that's not stiff. :roll:

I really like the look of them and even the feel of them (as long as they're not in my pillow shams, lol) so I think I'm just going to have to cut around the problems. I'm doing a twist 'n' turn bargello right now and I just had to use three of them, lol. We'll see how well that turns out!