Sewing with Wovens

Sugarcreek Wovens

Today we are talking fabrics…Wovens to be specific.  Isn’t that a great way to kick off your week, talking about fabric. =)

Many of the questions I’ve been receiving lately (since Sugarcreek wovens have come out) are about using woven fabrics…what are they, how do we use them, do we need to treat them any differently when piecing etc.

Sugarcreek Wovens

When I posted my first Wondering Wednesdays post many people had woven questions.  I knew I needed to dedicate an entire post just to these questions…so let’s dive in.

Cathleen C Monahan said: “You mentioned your wovens.  What does that mean?”

Answer:  Wovens are fabrics where the design is made by weaving the threads rather than printing on top of the fabric.  Homespuns are a great example of woven fabric that most of us are familiar with and we see them in many quilt shops.  They have the design on both the front and back of the fabric.

Beholden 2 in Sugarcreek Wovens mixed with Sugarcreek Prints

One of the big questions about wovens involves mixing them in quilts:

Brenda says: “I bought a layer cake of your Sugarcreek wovens.  I have not worked with woven fabrics before.  Should my background fabric be a woven fabric as well?  Do you have any tips to share when using woven fabrics in a quilt?

Lori says: “Ditto what Brenda asked! I’ve never worked with wovens either.”

Larine Dunham asks: I haven’t used wovens either, can you use them in a quilt with other cotton fabrics?”

Tami also says: “I’ve wanted so many of these same questions answered.  Especially mixing the wovens and solids (regular prints) together in a quilt.”

I like mixing wovens and prints together in a quilt as well as using wovens on their own.

Happy Scrappy Baskets in Sugarcreek Wovens and Prints

I don’t really treat the wovens any differently than other quilting cottons.  I don’t pre-wash either of them, I do find that I like to use a bit more starch on wovens to give them a little bit more body.  They are a little bit more “floppy” than quilting cottons. I mention further down in this blog post about varying quality in wovens and I want to add a disclaimer about prewashing/pre-starching. While, I mix and match wovens with quilting cottons and haven’t treated them any differently, it is good practice to prewash when mixing textiles. This will eliminate any surprises you might encounter in that first wash. And I would also suggest pre-washing or pre-starching wovens even if you are using only wovens in your quilt.

Sugarcreek Prints & Wovens

The wovens piece beautifully and press so nicely and they add such nice texture into your project.

Pound Cake using Sugarcreek Wovens

For my Pound Cake quilt, I used all wovens except for the white solid which is a Bella Solid (9900-200).  But the rest of the quilt, binding and backing included are wovens.  It is a wonderfully lightweight, soft quilt.

Poppyseed quilt in Sugarcreek Wovens

Poppyseed uses all Sugarcreek wovens with the exception of the white background (9900-200).  Again, it is a wonderfully soft quilt!

Sprinkling uses a charm pack of Sugarcreek Wovens and a charm pack of Sugarcreek Prints.  The background is Moda Bella Solid in 9900-200.

Small projects are a great way to test the waters to see how you like working with these fabrics:

Joyful Pillow pattern using Sugarcreek Wovens and Prints

This pillow pattern can be found in my Joyful pattern.  It is a bonus 3rd project.

I also made a bag using the Sugarcreek wovens, prints, and Moda’s crossweave in Black.  I love how this turned out.

The pattern is the Maker’s Tote by Noodlehead.  It is a wonderfully written bag pattern.

Do the wovens fray more than quilting cottons?

Answer: The Moda silky wovens, which is what the Sugarcreek Wovens are (and other Moda Wovens) are the same thread count as the quilting cottons–they are wonderful to work with.  Maybe they fray a little bit more?–I didn’t find them fussy to work with and I also feel like the starch holds everything in place so nicely.  I use Faultless starch.

Sugarcreek prints on the left and wovens on the right.

The last question I want to talk about is:  If you don’t pre-wash, how do the cottons and wovens wash together?

Happy Scrappy Baskets

This is my Happy Scrappy Baskets quilt.  For this quilt, I mixed together both the Sugarcreek wovens and prints.  In the photo above, the quilt has been washed and dried twice(once dried on the line, once in a hot dryer).  The first time I washed it and dried it was this summer and I washed it on hot, hung it out to dry, and then tossed it back in the dryer with a wet rag and gave it a steam to soften it up after bringing it in from the line.

I filmed with Fat Quarter Shop this summer  My video talking about mixing wovens/cottons was just released a couple weeks ago.  I talk about this quilt in the video and you can see how it looked after washing it the first time.

This past weekend, I gave it a second wash on hot and I dried it in the dryer on high.  The photo above is the result.  I didn’t notice any more crinkling in the quilt–it washed/dried very nicely.  I used shout color catchers in both my first and second wash because I didn’t prewash.  The quilt crinkled the same as I would have expected when using all regular quilting cottons.

Buggy Ride Quilt in Sugarcreek prints and wovens

As with all fabrics, there will be varying quality in wovens.  I can only speak for using quality quilting fabrics (both prints and wovens) when you are considering mixing the two together–especially without prewashing.  And if you are unsure about how things might turn out, you can always make a small test project and wash/dry it.  This ensures that you like working with the textiles as well as the end result before diving into a big project.

As for me, I’ve already got my hands on these Boro wovens:

Boro Foundations Wovens coming out in December

Aren’t they wonderful?  It’s the texture they add that makes me love wovens so much.  I have been buying wovens for years and am so excited to see them becoming more available in palettes that I love.

And just a couple more things you might like to check out:

Minick & Simpsons recent Derby quilt mixing wovens/prints

Camille Roskelley of Thimble Blossoms and her recent quilt mixing wovens/prints

A recent Moda Blog Post about Sewing With Wovens

You can find all of my patterns in my Etsy shop and you can check for them in your local quilt shop.  Sugarcreek Prints as well as Sugarcreek Wovens are in quilt shops now.  If you are unable to find them locally, they are available here.

If you have any questions about any of the information I’ve shared, leave me a question in the comments.  I am happy to answer. =)

Have a beautiful week, I’ll be back on Wednesday for Wondering Wednesdays. =)