Where do you draw the line between "usable" and "unusable" fabric?
 

Or "good" quality and "poor" quality fabric?

My most basic criteria:

Will it survive washing that is done with moderate care?

Is it about the same weight as most of the other fabrics in the top or back? I have sort of a bias against mixing weights such as heavy denim with gauze - the reason being that I don't think they will wear out at approximately the same time.

Can I clearly read newsprint between the threads?

There is a difference between "thin" fabric such as a high quality batiste that is used in christening gowns and "thin" fabric such as bandage gauze.

It depends on piece by piece. I've bought name brand fabrics from the LQS that after washing were unacceptable. Recently I'm working with some fat quarter scraps from Walmart and Joann, and I was surprised to find how much I liked working with the Waverly fabrics at Walmart.

I look for a good feel, that depends on the person. I look for a good tight weave, except that I also work with homespun fabrics and would consider many of them unsuitable if they were a dyed print instead of a woven. I look for good printing, those registration dots on the selvedge should be perfect. I also smell my fabric, some have dyes or processes that emit odors that bother me, so it might otherwise be usable to someone else but not to me.

I try to keep the fabrics I'm using to a similar weight, often hard to do with my scrap style of quilting. But batiks in general have a terrific tight weave and I enjoy working with them, but I would consider them too lightweight in many cases.

Old saying: you can't make a silk purse out of a pig's ear. Some fabric is just not worth my time to use and so I get it out of my stash.

Interesting thoughts . . . I rarely find fabric that I can't use somewhere on something but it's getting time to downsize and pass along some things (and a great deal of fabric).

I went to support a local quilt shop that has hundreds of bolts for the latest BH Mystery. I bought several neutrals and came home and washed them as I do all my fabric. That fabric was awful. It raveled terribly. Most of the fabrics did. I would never buy from that manufacture again. I was also disappointed that this shop even carried such fabric. The prices were not any better than others either.
Kirsten

I have learned to stay away from fabric produced in China no matter the brand name. For free or yard sale cuts, I can usually tell by feel if it will be worth having.

Feel and weave are my determining factors. If it doesn't feel right, I don't use it.

I just got a fabric that is horrid. Every time the needle hits it, it pulls a thread and has "runs"..(just long lines of missing fabric)...I tried different needles and determined the fabric is just garbage.It is wave texture by Bernatex. I don't know if I got a bad piece, or if that is their standard of quality now, but I'm done with it. I hope this is not how Bernatex fabrics are made now.

older fabrics, say pre-1950 I've learned if it rips too easily it is probably rotting, and I wouldn't use any blacks and for the same reasons 1920's and back probably wouldn't use any of the deep colors as the dyes are rotting the fabrics before my eyes I expect.

I might use thinly woven fabric or older well used clothing in a wall piece that won't get washed and worn
but never in a quilt made to be used. Common sense is key to all of it.

Bear, what are you quilting? Please show us your quilts.

Feel and weave for me as well. If it’s thin as in I can see my flesh color through it, I toss it. If it’s thin-scratchy, i’ll donate it to a thrift store. If I would’t want it against my skin on my sickest or saddest day, I won’t use it. It’s not just about usability in terms of durability, but of beauty and comfort.

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

When I first started quilting I used any fabric I liked indiscriminately because I just didn't know any better.

Today I am much more savvy as to the feel and weight, quality of the print.

Then, after I wash the fabric I can really see how it will handle.

Working with quality fabric is a sweet dream come true for quilters but there was a time I couldn't afford the "Best" so I learned how to handle lighter weight cottons, homespuns, plaids, shirtings and such. They are not lesser quality per say, but have a different hand and need a softer touch when working with them.

You should write Benartex and send a sample.

Excessive bleeding is a turn-off for me. I weigh the cost of water and sometimes Retayne and occasionally decide to discard the fabric instead of trying to stop the bleed.

Here's a horror story about old, poor quality fabric. A friend asked me to make a quilt from a kit she had had for some time. When I took the fabric out of the packaging I discovered that the instructions read "1980." It was so old the instructions did not refer to rotary cutting but drawing your cutting lines on your fabric. The pieces looked as if they were made of muslin, they were so thin. The largest piece was black and had been folded. When I opened it up the sharp edges on the folds all split and the fabric just disintegrated. I ended up with black dust all over my clothes, had to replace my ironing board cover, and had to mop my floor twice to get all the black off of the floor. Moral of the story - if you have any doubts about the quality, don't use it. Your time is too valuable to waste on poor quality.

"When in doubt,
throw it out."

If I get a bleeder - which I want to know about before I start cutting -

1) I will try to return it if I still have the sales slip - sometimes my fabric sets for years before I get around to doing anything with it -

2) if no sales slip (dated fairly recently!) , I discard it - much as it causes me pain to do so. But it would cause more pain to me if I used it.

I had some black cotton fabric disintegrate in the washer, too. I had bought two bolts of different shades of navy blue and one bolt of black - same manufacturer - at the same time. I just washed some more of the blue last fall - it's fine.

I also had black dust "everywhere" from it. It made quite a mess in the washer, too.