Ticking is a light/medium/heavy cotton material that was used in the making of feather pillows and mattress covers when straw and other similar materials were used to stuff them. The dense tough weave prevented the stuffing from getting thru and interfering with ones sleeping.
Pillow ticking usually is striped and when held up to a bright light, no light should be visible thru it, if you can see light the weave isn't close enough.
Upholstery/Mattress ticking is similar to denim in weight and usually without a busy pattern.
Last time I bought Ticking, to replace some that I appropriated from both my mothers sewing room and that of the significant other
, ran about 15 dollars per yard US for pillow ticking and nearer 25 dollars per yard Mattress/upholstery.
The material is fairly strong and provided it is thick enough can withstand being used in a muzzle loader, without cutting or being/burned shredded enough during firing to hurt the accuracy of a round ball, when fired from a muzzle loader.
The thickness makes up the difference between the ball and the bore or depth of the rifling of the muzzle loader. measure the ball, measure the depth of the rifling and choose the patch of the appropriate size, that makes up the difference.
You will find the best way is to go out to the range with various patch thickness and find what works the best, measurement will only take you so far and actual trigger time and examination of the patch and target accuracy are about the only way to know if you have everything right.
To thin a patch and the propellant gases may/will shred the patch and the ball will basically get shoved down the barrel without any real spin being imparted to it, because the patch was not thick enough to engage the rifling and spin the ball.
Too thick can make loading a pain, usually requiring a solid steel/brass rod and a hammer to load seat the ball safely against the powder, resulting in a deformed ball and possibly a cut patch, accuracy is lost and one really needs to be careful when dealing with BP in that sparks and heavy impacts are not a good thing with this powder. You can also damage the toe of the butt stock during loading if one needs to hammer the ball home.
Lubrication helps the patch slide down the bore and has the added advantage , dependent on the lube of course, of softening the left over fouling.
There are entire books written about running round ball rifle/muskets and they go into much more detail than the above, but I hope this helps.