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1. Fabric
Start out with 100% cotton fabric from a good quilt shop. It's higher quality and easier to cut and sew. Pre-shrink or pre-wash your fabric to avoid dye bleeding on your finished project.
You might want to consider prints that have large, medium, and small scaled textures; light, medium, and dark fabrics; and include some brighter, accent colors. Some quilters purposefully use only blended, low contrast prints, or strong contrasting colors -- so there are no rules.
If you are purchasing a new washing machine, make sure the energy saver feature still allows you to use very hot water. That way you can preshrink cotton and also do felted wool. A handwash cycle is a great way to avoid tangled fabrics.
