It works and it's cheap...

Ticking is made of cotton, which you need as polyester or man made materials will melt in the heat...The other option is material made of linen which is probably what they used before the mid 1800s...Many don't realize this but in the 1700s and early 1800s most clothes were made of linen instead of cotton, simply because the cotton gin hadn't been invented...

For years (20+) I used store bought patches...About 10 years ago I started having problems with patches burning through...I used hornets nesting or a felt wad for awhile to "fix" the problem...I finally went out and bought some ticking, made some lube from bees wax, castor oil and Murphy's Oil Soap and my problems went away...Those old, pre lubed patches had been weakened by the oil and were burning through...

I now cut at the muzzle or at the loading block with patches that I've lubed recently...