I've made whole cloths with cotton thread. My one mistake I made is quilting too close together (1/2" apart}. when washed and shrinks, the pattern became unrecognizable. So keep your stitches at least 1 inch apart. Don't know why cotton is off the list per your experts.

Jane,
You used cotton batting, right? Quality thread like Aurifil is not supposed to noticeably shrink. I'm hoping to use wool batting for my quilt. Cooler in the summer, warmer in the winter & attracts fewer dust mites than cotton.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, I guess, depending on how I look at it), I was surfing the web last night looking at whole cloth pictures & came across this stunning beauty done on RK Radiance fabric with silk threads: http://www.mainelyquiltsoflove.com/m...ilt-pics-047c/

It is just stunning! So now, of course, I have one more sample to make! I'm sure that will quilt up beautifully (obviously! since it won 1st prize at QuiltWeek), but want to road test it to see how it does with me sleeping with/on it. Gonna make a pillow sham to make sure it doesn't get too impossibly stained when used as bedding. Other downside is that it needs to be hand washed, supposedly, to keep its luster. But silk is supposed to be the best fabric for people with dust allergies so I guess I'll see (wonder if it still works since it's also part cotton).

When i hand quilt i have never used anything else but cotton thread...most of the ladies i quilt with also use only cotton thread.

Why not use cotton? For hundreds of years that was all that was available and we have quilts that are still hanging around after being quilted with cotton thread. Heck, my grandmother quilted rough quilts with the cotton string that was used to close feed sacks and some of those are still around, too.

I don't know the quilters mentioned. But I've been handquilting for 30+ years using only cotton thread of many different weights and brands, washing my quilts regularly, using them regularly, and would not ever quilt with anything but cotton thread in my cotton fabric quilts, even with my preferred wool batted quilts. Sorry, I just don't get it. :rolleyes:

Jan in VA

Since cotton thread was the only thread of choice for 200 years or so and those quilts are still around and going strong, I would not hesitate to use cotton thread. Many of the threads today have not "lived" long enough to see just how well they hold up in the long run of time.

You are getting incorrect advice. It sounds like one quilter's opinion. Cotton thread was used for generations and is still holding up in the quilts. Thread is thread. Use what you want to. Good comments tho about rayon and silk. I have a real issue with statements such as you must, you have to, or you gotta, you never, when it relates to quilting. Do these "experts" say why?

Cotton is not shiny. That's it. It will blend with the quilt or be a dull finish. It will not produce the brilliant eye-catching results that are seen in most of the award-winning machine-quilted whole cloth quilts. Sometimes that's okay -- or even desired. For my youngest nephew, I am learning to hand quilt so I can do a whole cloth crib quilt that is white fabric with light beige cotton thread. It's nice, but just looks very, very traditional (which is what my SIL prefers). I love modern quilts & have been a bit dismayed to find that all but one of the award-winning wholecloths that I've researched (which was done in silk) were quilted with synthetic thread (rayon, poly or on occasion, nylon).

The only way I'm probably ever going to be comfortable with this decision is to see the difference side by side -- since I haven't found any examples of a heavily quilted whole cloth done all in cotton in a modern design. Maybe people are missing out & this is just something that needs to be done more. I guess we'll see. :)

Thanks again to all who've posted!!!