Cotton or Cotton Sateen?
 

I am planning a new wholecloth quilt (the center design is attached as a picture). I plan it to be about 50" square, which means I need to buy wider fabric.

Fabric.com has wide black cotton broadcloth, but also has a cotton sateen for a reasonable price.
I've heard that sateen can be really pretty, and based on the price, I wonder if the broadcloth won't be that nice. I plan to spend 100+ hours quilting this, so I'd like it to turn out nice

Does anyone have suggestions on which fabric might be better? Any experience with quilting cotton sateen? I'm kind of too lazy to order swatches (the fact that I did a mock up of the design before launching into the big one is really a huge step for me), so I'll just go for it.

So you are planning to hand quilt? For broadcloth, I think the ease of handquilting may depend considerably on which brand you purchase. In my experience, Kona cotton broadcloth (all the solid colors) have a very meaty hand and I think they would be more difficult to hand quilt. Moda Bella is a finer broadcloth that I suspect would be easier to hand quilt. Broadcloth has a different weave than regular quilting cottons, so I'm not sure how that affects quilting.

I believe sateen is somewhat slippery, wrinkles easily (may not be a factor for you), and loses its shine with washing (again, may not be a factor for you if it's a wallhanging).

For 100+ hours of quilting, I think it would be worth taking the time to get some samples to try out.

Oh, goodness- no! Not hand quilting. That would be like 1,000+ hours. This will be machine quilted.
The last one I did this size took me 130 hours of quilting, but I am better at it now, so I'm estimating it will go faster.


Looking at prices, the sateen works out less expensive, so that is a good incentive to try something new.

sateen has a lot of cross stretch. If I were going to use it for a hanging quilt I'd use 501 basting spray, be sure the opposite side warp is going the opposite of the front, and quilt evenly across it. It does quilt up beautifully, by hand or machine.

if you google sateen quilts you'll see how beautiful.. best wishes on your project.

I love the way cotton sateen looks, very rich! I have purchased several pieces over the last couple of years, and one piece that I got was really stretchy. Don't know why. I would order a small piece and see what it looks like.

Hmmm.... I didn't know sateen stretches.

The cost of shipping a small piece of it is about half the cost of just ordering the yardage, which is why I'm not going for a sample. If it is truly awful, I'll just re-order.

I'm still on the fence. The stretching worries me, but the photos make the fabric look lovely.

I find the broadcloth a little rough in texture, I don't think id like that.

For your design I would recommend the broadcloth. You would loose much of the look of sateen with the amount of quilting. Also as indicated above it is stretchy and more difficult to quilt. Leave the sateen to a design that you see more of.

Thanks Holice- that makes sense (and the kind of reasoning is why I included the picture).

The letters on the actual quilt will be more ornate (this was just a super quick mock up to see if the idea worked)- but it won't be a ton of open space.