I have never used stablilizer before and really dont know what it is. Can someone tell me about it and what brands to look for or stay away from? I am making a quilt out of my sons baby clothes if that makes any difference in what to buy thanks

There are tons of different stabilizers for different purposes. How do you plan to use the stabilizer?

If you're making something with old baby clothes it sounds like you just need to stabilize the knit fabrics so they don't stretch all over the place while you're working with them. A medium weight fusible interfacing would probably be best. I don't think it matters what kind of brand.

Thanks for starting this topic, seahorseanna. I'm in need of more info on this as well. If I may add another question: is interfacing and stabilizer the same thing?

I used light weight iron on interfacing on a knit pajama quilt I made recently. It worked great.

Interfacing and stabilizer have some similarities but are not the same thing.

Interfacing (both sew-in and fusible) are meant to reinforce and stabilize areas of a garment, typically, although they are used to stabilize and reinforce other things. They usually have a little bit of give, even the non-woven ones, so they would not be suitable for something like machine embroidery.


Stabilizer on the other hand is a non-woven material that does not give at all. It is used to...well...stabilize fabrics so they don't distort and pucker when doing machine embroidery, for instance. There are many different kinds of stabilizer- cut away, tear away, wash away, self-adhesive, etc. You could also use stabilizer to stabilize the background fabric when doing applique. It also tends to be more expensive than interfacing.

Some people will use tissue paper, freezer paper, or newspaper or other kinds of papers as stabilizers that are removed after the project is constructed (paper piecing is a good example).

I use starch to stabilize fabric for certain applications -- especially machine applique and when piecing a quilt out of flannel. Heavy starch (1:1 solution of Sta-Flo and water) stabilizes the background fabric sufficiently for machine applique so that I don't have to use anything else, and the starch washes out later. Flannel has a tendency to stretch and distort when piecing, so again heavy starch comes to the rescue.

In the past I have stabilized knits (such as t-shirt fabrics) with fusible nylon tricot, which worked well. You need to pre-shrink the tricot by holding a steam iron above it for a few seconds; you can see it shrink before your eyes! An advantage of fusible nylon tricot is that it has some "give" and does not make fabrics as stiff as many other fusibles. It does, however, add quite a bit of thickness and weight.

For this, I would also suggest a fusible tricot stabilizer. You will want something soft, light, and that will keep the knits from stretching :D:D:D

I use starch and coffee filters. They iron flat and are acid free and you can buy a stack of them in the $ stores.