I've used them all from homemade starch to Mary Ellens. I like Faultless Lavender Professional MAXX spray starch the best. It's in a 20 oz pump spray bottle and cost $1.88 at Walmart. Niagara starch does not flake much at all so I use that for darker fabrics.

I wonder if adding a little water to the spray it would make a nice wrinkle releaser for clothes, drapes, fabric, .... It's not a starch so it should work.

Be careful with starches on your quilts...I use MaryEllens Best Press..it is actually made from the same natural products our greatgrandmothers used..the regular starches you get today like StaFlo etc will attracked silver fish and moths and can eat into your fabrics in the years that come..you can research it on the internet and read about it..thats how I found out..that is one reason so many quilts of the new years (in the past 50) have not made it as long as the ones from a 100 years ago...check it out...I believe I first read about it on Quilter Unversity...but that was a few years ago..but you can check for yourself and see what is being said now...I do love Best Press thought..blessings

Try making your own starch. 1-2 tbsp corn starch (available at the grocery store); 2 cups water. Make this small amount at one time because it has a shelf life of about weeks. Very inexpensive and works really well for me.

I always use Sta-Flo, mix it half and half with water.. put it in a hand sprayer and keep on my ironing board.

I've never ever had a bug on anything nor any holes or evidence of anything, ever.. I've been doing it for years. I'm beginning to think that the starch/bug thing is an old wives tale..

after reading bearlea's post I guess I've been lucky.. don't know why the little critters haven't done anything to my quilts.. Maybe they like art quilts??

This is why I said check for yourself...it might be an old wives tale for all I know for sure..but I did read it a few years ago on a well known quilt site..so I thought I would post the information just in case..blessings

I use Niagara when I starch. Walgreens regularly has it on sale for 99 cents.

I don't starch my fabric until I get ready to use it. I guess if a quilt is made from starched fabric and not washed and stored away for years it would attract some bugs to the starch. At least the bugs are getting some use out of the quilt, no one else would be.

Why let it dry and toss in the dryer? I thought that is why you spray and then iron. What does putting it in the dryer do? Is there a difference between ironing then or waiting?

I remember my grandma sprinkling the cloths with a coke bottle with a top on it and putting it in the fridge for ironing later. Don't know what was in the bottle, but remember seeing the clothes in the fridge as a young child.