Here’s a fun cotton corduroy I found in my stash. Although corduroy is most commonly used to make pants and jackets, it is a durable, washable fabric and adds great texture to quilts.

• Try mixing fine wale corduroy (made with thin tufted cords) with quilting cottons in baby and kids quilts. It’s weight is close to quilting cottons and is easy to piece or appliqué. Machine quilting should be fairly easy as well on most machines. Make a sample quilt sandwich to test different threads, stitch lengths and tension. Stitch-in-the-ditch on the non-corduroy side is a good quilting choice.

• After you’ve tried your hand at thin wale corduroy, why not try adding some wide wale corduroy (made with thick tufted cords) in an art quilt to hang on the wall. Think ahead about the placement of the wide wale corduroy and the quilting. A sample quilt sandwich will help you see how your machine likes quilting over wide wale corduroy. You may want to stitch-in-the-ditch around the corduroy or simply tie the layers together in those places.

• Be careful not to crush the cords when pressing. Corduroy is actually a kind of ridged velvet. Use a pressing cloth and a light hand with the iron.