For me, that line depends on the purpose of the quilt. A fabric that I would call not useable for a baby quilt that gets lots of use/washing might be exactly what I’m looking for to use in an art quilt.

Rob

You would be surprised at how "thin" or "bad quality" fabrics hold up. I was once given a set of cute, prestamped quilt blocks for embroidery . The fabric content on the package read "poly/cotton" . They were thin; not read the newspaper through thin, yet most quilters wouldn't have even tried it. But they were a gift from my dear in-laws and I know it would have offered my MIL if I hadn't made up the quilt. I made the embroidered blocks up, using fabric paint instead of hand embroidery, for my daughter's baby quilt. I quilted the whole thing with a simple meandering, about 1.5" apart. My daughter loves it and it's been washed so many times! Sometimes several times a month! (During bad sicknesses, several times a week.) It's holding up great. The fabric weave was thin, but no seams have come apart, no batting coming through, and no worn spots. I think quilting well is the key.

Now, as for Waverly fabrics from Wal-Mart, I do buy and use them, as it's cheap and 100% cotton. But, I have noticed that after a wash, once quilted up, the fabric attracts pilling. Is it just me? Iceblossom, do you have the same thing? Maybe it's because I have been using 100%polyester batting. I'm now using 80/20 Hobbs; it might make a difference. I don't know.

I bought some of that WalMart Waverly and thought it was awful. Stiff even after washing, and very coarse. I wouldn't want to sleep under a quilt made with that stuff! I'm using it for other projects.

Speaking of which, I had some printed fabrics that were a little less than ideal (bought when I started getting into quilting) and I used them to make up "Smile Bags" to send to Operation Smile. They give a little bag of things to the children who have surgeries (with hairbrush, toothpaste, coloring books, items like that). Made me feel better not to be throwing it out but putting it to some type of use. :)

I've purchased and washed the Waverly cotton fabrics from Walmart and have been happy with them. I do overcast the raw edges before machine washing.

I did not notice any pilling, the shrinkage was in line with the LQS fabric shrinkage (I measured before and after), and a couple of the dark ones had some excess dye, but none of them were bleeders.

I do think it is a bit on the coarsely woven side - but I also think some of the LQS fabrics are also on the coarsely woven side.

I am very careful when i buy fabric with the weight I will use so the only time I have fabric I don't use is when i can't find enough fabrics to go with them or a pattern that I think it will go with. All the rest I will find a way to use them. I do sometimes find I don't like something so much after all and it gets thrown back for later.

I try to avoid all products from China, especially foodstuffs. After poisoning so many dogs in USA due to some additive in dog food they exported, I don't trust them.

They are producing a computer now, Lenovo, that has excellent endorsements, but I'm waiting to see what people will say about their customer service. ... Some people think it's made by IBM, but it is not. This Chinese company bought IBM and use the name IBM on some of their products.

Do you have any experience with this computer? I will have to replace this old relic I have! :)

I should mention about the fabrics that I bought a bag of scraps from the Goodwill, some of which are Joann, most of which are Walmart. They were mostly remnants of fat quarters, some were portions of yardage. While I'm not thrilled with a lot of them in terms of color/design, together they made a usable collection of roughly coordinating fabrics. I'm trying to loosen up and be more improvisationable in this project and not my typical OCD style of quilting...

I washed all the fabrics before using and am in the process of of sewing with them now. In general, the Joann fabrics are lighter/flimsier than the Walmart fabrics but in no way are all of the pieces equal. One of the ones I'm certain is from Joann was ok, others usable but on the flimsy side. I'm thinking that the ones clearly marked as Waverly on the selvedge are perhaps used for other products and the leftovers turned into fat quarters, while the fabrics destined for fat quarters is made on a different (lower) quality of greige (raw unprinted cotton) goods.

But yeah, I would use some of those Waverly stripes and polka dots gladly in any quilt I make. Others wouldn't cross my threshold -- either in terms of coming into the house or being used.

I replaced a Lenovo about 6 mo. ago with a refurbished Mac Pro from a Mac dealer in town. The owner used to work on guidance systems for NASA & said they are not very well made since IBM sold. The Lenovo lasted 1.5 yrs for me. The Mac is much better.

I am finding more and more that, fabric is getting made really poorly and the price is still going up. If you have some from several years ago, and compare the weight to some today, you'll feel the difference. Stuff "Claims" to be 100% cotton, but it's so stretchy that I wonder. Some claiming to be 100% have failed the Burn Test.

I'm with you. Don't trust them, as they are not trustworthy. I Hate that we lost so much of our mfg to them. and other countries. We made quality products but people hated paying the prices, that union labor got paid. So companies went elsewhere.. and No we're getting poor quality stuff in all categories.w