Kona Cotton: The Quilter's & Embroiderer's Dream Fabric
Almost
every quilter or embroiderer who has been enjoying their craft for any
length of time has heard of Kona cotton. Browse sewing, quilting and
embroidery web sites or fabric stores long enough and sooner or later
you're going to read praises for Kona cotton.
What, Exactly, Is Kona Cotton?
Kona(R)
cotton is a premium, 100% cotton broadcloth from Robert Kaufman Fabrics
in Los Angeles. The company introduced the fabric in the 1980's in
response to the then rapidly emerging quilting industry, an interest
that continues unabated today. It is a soft, light fabric, often called
the 'Quilter's Cotton', that is also ideal for fine apparel such as
children's clothing soft, comfortable shirts dresses applique and home
decorating. It has a 'meaty' hand, which means you can really feel the
difference when you touch the fabric and that makes it a joy to work
with.
Warps. And Wefts, Too
Kona
cotton has a high 60 by 60 thread count. This means there are 60 warp
threads and 60 weft threads per square inch of fabric. Until I did some
research, I didn't know what warp and weft threads were. (I had never
even heard the word 'weft'.) A warp thread is a support thread in the
loom, long and strong and usually tied down onto the loom a weft thread
is passed back and forth between the warp threads to form cloth. It is
that high thread count, all those warps and wefts playing together,
that make Kona cotton a soft, light, yet very durable material one of
the best woven fabrics available for hand or machine quilting.
Pre-use Care
It's
a good idea to launder the fabric to remove any sizing/finish before
using it in your project. Treat it as you would any new 100% cotton
fabric: Gentle wash, mild detergent, tumble dry low, remove promptly
and iron. Expect about a 1-3% shrinkage.
What About Color?
Kona
is available in plenty of colors, 170 solid colors according to the
manufacturer's web site, RobertKaufman.com. And a quick search for
'hand dyed Kona cotton' will pop up vendors offering hundreds of colors
and patterns of beautifully dyed Kona cotton fabric.
But Aren't You an Embroiderer?
Yes,
I am a machine embroiderer and those same qualities that make Kona
cotton ideal for quilting and sewing apply to machine embroidery, too.
That meaty feel I mentioned makes it very easy to hoop and quick to
stabilize. The push/pull factor is minimal and, best of all, the
stitched out designs are gorgeous on it. Even though there a many
cheaper fabrics, I test all my embroidery designs on Kona cotton and
turn to it first for any finished embroidery project I have.
Deb Schneider is an embroidery design digitizer offering her machine embroidery designs, Redwork embroidery designs and appliques on her website: WindstarEmbroidery.com. |
