jmoore

Looking for any advice or experience from those of you who have worked with linen. My DIL's sweet sister Heather just purchased 8 or so yards of a beautiful floral linen for her baby girl nursery. She is planning to use the linen for drapes, a duster/ruffle for the crib, and accent pillows. She asked me if she could use the fabric for a blanket... Unfortunately, I had to tell her that I haven't had any experience with linen in my quilting but I told her I knew where I could get some feedback... Thank you in advance for your time and comments.

Jane Quilter

Linen wrinkles real bad no matter how much you starch and iron. It will be fine for things you don't touch like drapes, bed skirts, table covers, doilies. But blankets? They get touched, handled and bent too much, They would look like a wrinkly mess. I don't recommend it.

Jeanne S

It wrinkles a lot, and personally I don't think it is that soft or comfortable. Never have seen it used in a blanket. Seems like there are lots of better choices. Linen makes great drapes and Roman Shades however.

yngldy

I have seen a lot of items for babies online and at shows, made out of linen. Not sure it is the same type that your friend bought, but it is the "new" thing. It is more like gauze than the thick linen.
Benartex http://www.benartex.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=linen
makes quite a few lines, as well as a couple of others that I can't remember. I don't know how it launders (it is like gauze), but it is soft.

QuiltnLady1

I would not use real linen -- it is a loose weave and it ravels as well as wrinkling. There are some lovely linen look fabrics and you might be able to get one that blends with what your DIL's sister bought and make a pretty quilt that blends with the other items.

jmoore

The issue of wrinkling was the first thing I said to the expecting mom... My other concern is how different the weave is from regular cotton so you'd probably have to adjust your stitch length and weight of thread? Thank you to those who have responded thus far.

maminstl

It depends on the fabric. I use linen a lot - both in my clothing and in quilting. You can use it for all of the things that you mention. fabrics-store.com sells linen by the yard at a very reasonable cost. I wash and dry the yardage several times to preshrink and soften it. It has a pleasing texture to me, and it isn't really what I call wrinkled. I've used it in piecing and also as quilt backing. I recommend you check out the site where customers post photos of their creations. You will get a good idea of how it makes up. I love the stuff and have a hard time not letting myself "collect" it.

ManiacQuilter2

I have never used it. It wrinkles too much as other say. That is why 100% cotton has been used for centuries for quilting.

willferg

I had some linen from a high end manufacturer of bedding and I used it in a baby blanket. I cut it into 6" squares and alternated it with a solid cotton. It was fairly soft and I don't think it wrinkled any more than anything else, at least not in that size and after quilting. It was a very pretty fabric.

bernamom

Look at Etsy, there are lots of linen quilt and they look great!