I made a quilt with large areas of black. I was told I should have used a black batt with that, as it did some bearding when it was quilted; the white of the batt came through to the front with all the needle punches.

I, too, have found that Waverly black from Walmart is a beautiful black. Fabric is smooth and has somewhat of a silky feeling. It does want to ravel, though.

My experience with Walmarts black fabric is that it bleeds alot. Just buy a 1/2 a yard and take it home and put it in your bath room sink and add a little laundry soap and hot tap water and swish it around a little and let it set in the water. Go back and check it in 20 minutes. And you will be surprised how much it bleeds. I always wash all dark fabrics no matter what brand they are just to be on the safe side.

Kona Black is my favorite standby. Never without it, I am just finishing my 4th bolt! I will order two bolts to restock in the next day or so. I've never encountered a problem with Kona Black other than making sure I don't run out of it! Lots of charity quilting goes on here - 100 to 150 tops per year.

When I washed (soaked in hot water for a couple of hours) the Michael Miller black - it shrank over two inches in width, but not much in length. (This was four different pieces purchased at different times.) It does seem to be consistent from bolt to bolt as to its "blackness."

I am currently doing a Jacqueline de Jonge kit that has the nicest black fabric - has good body and not ravelly. I believe is made by Anthology. I found some online at craftttownfabric.com

I have used the Kona black from HL and it has worked well. On the other hand, the Waverly fabric that I used from Walmart for placemats seemed to shrink up quite a bit. (Not black) I did not measure it before I washed the finished placemats but I know they turned out smaller than I thought.

Sorry the correct link is
crafttownfabrics.com

You know, your comments in regards to the weight of Kona fabrics is interesting. I have two experiences with Kona: I ordered a Kona fabric from Fabric.com in a light pink; it was somewhat thin but worked well. I purchased Kona steel-gray from JoAnn's, and it was considerably heavier than what I had previously bought. BOTH of these purchases said "Kona Cotton Broadcloth," and both were used as backing. So, I am really confused about the term "broadcloth," since I was not specifically looking for that. I have researched and cannot find out if Kona 100% cotton fabric and Kona 100% Cotton Broadcloth are EXACTLY the same fabric. Does anyone know? Anyway, the pink worked well, and for that matter, so did the heavier gray, but I would not have wanted to use the grey with some of the "gentler" fabrics I use -Moda, Wilmington, etc. Also, the Kona grey unraveled a lot, so much so that I will be using the leftover in a rag quilt -a quilt I have to date always used only flannels. As for fading or running, I prewashed both, and I had no problem.

I bought nine pieces of the Waverly cottons from Wal-Mart in February 2017. (I think it was around $3.00/yard) I soaked them all in hot water and then washed them in cold and line dried them. I measured the pieces before and after washing them - and the shrinkage was minimal. Less than 1/2 inch in either direction per yard.

I did overcast the edges before dunking the pieces.

I was also happily surprised by how color fast the pieces seemed to be - a bright royal blue, a turquoise, a magenta, a bright orange, a gray, a bright yellow, a lime green.

It is somewhat coarsely/loosely woven - but then I looked at some of the Alexander Henry's available now - and it looked about the same to me.

I did not have much of a raveling problem with it, either.

It was adequate for the fabrics I was using it with.