What’s the best solid cotton? Everyone has an opinion. We have all tried a few and decided we like one more than another; but there are SO MANY. I use a few bolts of black solid a year, so I wanted to know for certain that my brand was really the one I liked the best – and not just the one that’s readily available for the right price. Why black? Color depth and fastness are a large part of quality, and no other color would be deterministic. It’s also my go-to background and all around most used fabric.

That’s how I went down the rabbit hole of ordering a yard of every single black fabric from every manufacturer I could find. My guidelines were simple:

• Solid only
• Quilter’s Cotton, Broadcloth, or Batik
• Every black shade available, including “jet”, “Caviar”, “Eclipse” etc.
• Every option – premium, soft touch, etc.

I am sure that there are more than 42 that fit this criteria, but after the first 30 or so it got really hard to find more. I pushed for what would make a standard precut amount, because as a quilter that made sense.

Now I have 42 yards of fabric being pre-cut, labeled, and prepped for a gambit of tests in order to rank them on categories of color, feel, durability, ease of use, value, and public opinion. It’s that last part that I’ll need help with; because one quilter alone is not enough. I dedicated 20 inches of each yard to be cut into 5″ squares, and will be selecting roughly 20 people to receive a care package with a square of each fabric (samples labeled by id so the survey is unbiased). Each tester will be asked to fill out a small survey for every single sample, and the results will be published here along with all the other tests I am conducting.

In the end, there will be a winner. Will it be the upscale expensive fabric? Will it be the value cotton from a large box store? Or maybe the organic hard to find cotton? I don’t know now, but I’m pretty excited to find out!