This is a good mystery to start your day. Do share with us when you find out for sure. To me "shirtings" covers any fabric a mans shirt would be made of and that covers a world of yardgoods.

If you live near an Amish community, their dry goods stores will many times have shirtings. I believe a shirting is defined as "a material for making shirts, especially a fine cotton in plain colors or incorporating a traditional woven stripe" and that coincides what I've used in working on recreation costumes.

All that said, I agree with most people above and would call the store/instructor and ask.

To me, shirtings prints were allways small (what I call "ditzi" prints) on white, off-white, tan or cream. Sorta of like some of the 30's prints.

I agree with both of these statements. You probably won't find these types of fabrics in a LQS that caters to the "modern" quilters, but you should find them easily in the civil war/repro type of LQS. I know of one shop locally that has them in stock on her clearance shelves, it's a bummer she doesn't have an online shop!

I agree with the descriptions from chele and sandy and peckish. Moda has a line of fabric (a couple of years old now) called Shirtings 1875-1900 designed by Terry Clothier Thompson. I have yardage of a couple of the prints....they are small theme prints on a light background. The one I bought the most of has a very small red and blue baseball design....hands holding a bat and also a ball on a cream background.

I've read that these prints were very popular as men's shirt fabrics during the late 1800's as engravers and fabric designers developed techniques to make these tiny prints look realistic. The sports themes were very popular in that period. There's a PDF from Moda with a little history and display of the fabrics in the Shirtings line. I have some of the bicycle print too and it looks very cool in small pieces. Here's a link to the PDF: http://www.unitednotions.com/fcc_shirtings_1875_1900.pdf

Anita

It's 100% cotton used to make men's shirts. The fabrics most commonly called shirtings are white with little outline designs. If you google "shirting quilt fabric" you'll find several for sale on various websites.

"Shirtings" refers to reproduction fabrics which have a light background with small print. You can see pictures of them at this link.
http://www.hickoryhillquilts.com/shirtings.htm

what is the type or name of the class you are taking. i'm curious as to the class and the use of "shirtings"

Shirtings are white or off white 100% cotton quilting fabric with a small stripe or pattern in it that looks like you could make shirts out of it. No big mystery. It's just what the name implies.

Such a nice response from all for this question for me. The class is called "The Chicken Coop", 30" square wall hanging, made with nine-patch blocks with black and white squares, alternating with pieced and appliqued chickens - real easy chickens made out of stash scraps. Add woolen pieces for combs and beaks.

I've emailed the teacher, but no response yet, for clarification of these "shirtings" fabric.

Sounds like I can use the 100% cotton with very small patterns on the white, but anxious for the teacher's explanation, for such an old term. Will let you all know.