nanna-up-north

Okay, I've been quilting for a long time now. But when I'm putting together a quilt, I just go buy batting and don't ask many questions. I don't like poly because the threads start to come through the top... I know there is a word for that. But I read about batting and there are things I don't know. Like, what's skrim? And, is there a right side and wrong side to batting? Which side goes to the back? Can someone clear things up for me. I'm getting old but I'm still willing to learn.

Terri D.

All good questions, but there is so much information on batting, it would require a book! Fortunately, Harriet Hargrave has written extensively about batting, including all the terms associated with it. If you can find her books From Fiber to Fabric and Heirloom Machine Quilting, they do much to educate the quilter about this important component of our quilts.

feline fanatic

When batting fibers migrate through the fabric it is called bearding. It used to be a big problem with poly batting but manufacturers heard us and now resin coat their poly battings which prevents bearding. Two I have had very good luck with are Hobbs Polydown and Quilters Dream poly.

Scrim is a very sheer polyester "foundation" for lack of a better word that cotton battings are needle punched to. The reason for scrim is to give the cotton batting more strength and stability and to allow greater distance between quilting stitches. The 100% cotton batting without scrim needs to be handled very gently or it will tear apart quite easily and it must be quilted a minimum of 2" while cotton battings with scrim can be quilted up to 10" apart and can be manhandled quite a bit without tearing.

With W&N batting there is a right side and wrong side. If you hand quilt it makes little difference but machine quilting or LA quilting the bumpy side should be against your quilt top. I always remember it by "bump is up". Here is a great blog about it with close up pictures
http://pamhollanddesigns.typepad.com...o-batting.html

Knitette

This is Warm and Natural's right and wrong side:

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nanna-up-north

Thanks, everyone. I will start paying attention to this... What happens when it's put together the wrong way? Will this help solve the problem of the sandwich shifting when I'm quilting it together?

CorgiNole

Thanks for the visual for W&N! I didn't realize there was a right/wrong side.

Cheers, K

feline fanatic

No. If you put the batting in upside down this can cause batting pokies to come through to your backing. More common in LA than domestic due to the size of the needle and speed at which a LA operates.

Things that will keep your layers from shifting while you are quilting is more basting, be it safety pins, needle and thread or spray basting and stabilizing quilting before you go on to detail background quilting. See if your library has Harriet Hargrave's book Heirloom Machine Quilting. She explains this very will with lots of pictures. You can also pick it up used on Amazon for basically the price of shipping. Well worth it. http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listi...qid=1401813728

ManiacQuilter2

I have always used Hobbs 80/20, I love the way it puffs slightly when quilted and it is much lighter than W&N. I never liked the seeds and twigs that were actually in the W&N batting when it first came out.

Prism99

Warm and Natural is the only batting I know of that has a right side and wrong side. With other battings, there is typically no need to be concerned about which side is up.

Warm and Natural is needlepunched through scrim, which makes it extremely stable, with quilting lines at a max of 10" apart. Vintage cotton batting (such as Mountain Mist) is the type that is not needlepunched or bonded, requiring quilting lines no more than 2" apart.

In-between those two extremes are cotton battings that are bonded (for example, Hobbs 80/20) and cotton battings that are needlepunched but not through scrim (Quilter's Dream cotton). The distance between quilting lines for these battings also falls in-between the two extremes.

mckwilter

If you go to the Hobbs batting website (follow this link -- http://www.hobbsbatting.com/our-products/ ) on the right hand side is a .pdf symbol. Click that to get a comparison chart of the various battings that Hobbs produces and sells. The company is located in Waco, TX, and tries as much as possible to use materials that are grown or raised in Texas -- cotton and wool. I don't know where they get their silk from. So if "made in the USA" is important to you, this is the product to buy. And no, I don't work for Hobbs. Their silk batting is highly recommended for jackets, because it drapes so nicely. And they just came out with a new product that is a wool/cotton combo batting that is supposed to be very nice. Haven't seen it in any of the stores I frequent yet, but I keep looking.