To begin with, I want to say something as trite as it is important and that is, “Use the very best materials that you can afford for any and all handwork.” Extravagance is never smart, but good quilt materials are not expensive. It’s the sleazy ones, unreliable dyes and starched cloth that prove expensive in the end.
Wash goods is gauged by the number of threads per square inch, “68-72” is a fair grade of percale, “80 square” is excellent, the weight we usually use and some of the very fine imported ginghams run to “120 square.”
A firm weave is imperative where one is cutting small triangles and diamonds where part of each block must be bias. Imagine trying to fit bias sides of rayon crepe or voile onto squares and you can see how totally unfitted such scraps are for quilt making. Coarse linens, crash weight cretonne, and pongee unless deeply seamed ravel out too easily to be suitable. Romper cloth and any others that border onto ticking texture are too close weave and heavy to quilt well. Cheap ginghams will shrink enough to pucker in a quilt top. So to the firm weave must be added soft texture. “Buty chine” is a permanent luster satine of finest quality which we recommend for excellent results. The finest materials certainly do make the loveliest quilts.
The dye problem is mastered with a reasonable amount of care as “vat dyes” are usual in even very inexpensive goods. “Commercially fast” the dealer will say, which means with any reasonable care they will not run. Very few manufacturers will absolutely guarantee color, and where they do replace, they have told us it was often a case of sub-standard black thread which had spotted with washing. Quilts are naturally difficult things to launder. A wisp of silk undies may be in, out, and dry in next to no time, but a quilt with cotton filler, top and lining all stitched plumply together goes in for no such speedy procedure. When it gets wet it stays that way long enough to try colors to their limits. We have had quilt colors, yellows and reds “bleed” into the white and in subsequent tubbings clear again to white. For the “priceless” quilts we suggest the French dry-cleaning establishments.
The rather violent coloring of many heirloom quilts is due to their makers’ belief that only oil red, oil green and oil yellow were considered reliable enough to use. Sometimes indigo blue was admitted to this favored fast group.