Favorite Fabrics

Thank you for all the suggestions and perspectives expressed!

I think (being new) that I will start small... by buying several packs of new needles for the ladies to use to tie through the quilts.

Several folks object to the double-knits, because they are too hard to sew through. Well, if you look at their stash of needles, a good portion of them have corrosion on the sides. Not being smooth, of course they won't go through the fabric well! And some of the other ones are more for working with yarn, as they have blunt tips instead of sharp. Of course, those won't go through the knits!

georgiamarbles

MY grandma use to quilt anything she found...from knits to old clothing... i now have 3 of her quilts as some of my most prized possessions...so the beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

GailG

I totally agree.

coldquilter

I do work for a fabulous charity and we make about 100-150 baby quilts per year to be donated to hospitals throughout our state. Our guidelines are this: must be 100% cotton and anything that is so thin that we can see through it, we give it to someone else to use for another purpose. Part of the dilema is that you have to think about how these quilts are going to be cared for and how they are going to be washed. You don't want to go through all that work to have them falling apart in the first year for example. These are the guidelines we follow and hopefully it will help you and your group.

star619

Common sense from Canada! The time spent arguing over this issue could have been spent working.Remember the old adage:"A giraffe was a horse built by a committee".

sewnsewer2

What may be 'ugly' so some, others will think it is 'beautiful'.

GrannieAnnie

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The quilts are all going overseas. We're not actually quilting them, just tying through with perle cotton (or similar). I don't believe all the fabrics would wash succesfully, but the point was mentioned that if the quilts are just to serve as a wall or a rug, they might not ever get washed anyway........................
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I'd take any fabric that isn't strong enough for washing and get rid of it somehow, at least separate it from the washable------------Personally, I'd be very upset if I got a quilt thinking I could wash it when soiled and then find our the thing fell apart.

When our group did charity quilts, we had some knits and such. We always paired the knit with a good woven and ended up with some cute quilts.

TanyaL

Think about this. When charities set up companies to help women work their way out of poverty in these 3rd world countries, these women produce some of the most beautiful handwork, woven fabric and other things in the world. Their items are prized.And these are the same women we send ugly quilts to because they have had a natural disaster or a civil war. We should respect them. They are still artists even if a natural disaster or a civil war has hit.Look at the National Geographic Christmas
Catalog and see their work.

GrannieAnnie

Another simple question-------------------------

DEFINE UGLY!

Remember the UGLY fabrics on this board? Some I loved. Some I hated but others loved.

GrannieAnnie

I find double knit easy to sew thru. Are your ladies perhaps using sharps for the double knit? They need ball point needles, kind of like the counted cross stitch needles. If a sharp hits the "string" of a double knit it wants to go thru which is hard to do. If a ball point hits the "string" it will slide to one side or the other and go thru easily.