After you have finished piecing the quilt top the next step is to layer the backing fabric, quilt batting and the quilt top, so you can quilt it. And this post is about helping you pick the right batting for your quilt.
Quilt batting is a very important part of the quilt. The batting is what gives the quilt it’s warmth and the weight.
Batting can be made out of different materials and comes in all different sizes. And I hope this blog post helps you to understand a little more about batting.
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What is a Quilt Sandwich?
If you’re new to quilting, you maybe wondering what a quilt sandwich is. This is not a special sandwich quilt makers eat :-).
A quilt sandwich is made when you layer the quilt top, batting and the quilt backing. The layers are either pinned or sprayed with quilt basting spray. Then you’ll quilt the layers together.
What is Quilt Batting?
Quilt batting is that middle layer of the quilt. Like I said before batting is what gives the quilt it’s warmth and weight. Batting also is what gives the quilt it’s thickness.
Sometimes batting is also called wadding. And the batting can help you see the quilting design. There is also different types of batting.
Batting can come in polyester batting, pure cotton batting, or poly blend batting. There is also wool batting and bamboo batting too.
Cotton batting is made from all-natural fibers and is used not just for quilts, but is a great choice for pot holders and bowl cozies. Cotton is a popular choice if you want to use more natural materials and cotton batting is also used for table runners. Cotton batting is also said to be easier to use for machine quilting.
Polyester batting is lighter than cotton and is easier to take care of. Polyester also makes a finished quilt warmer than cotton batting and it’s also a top pick for hand quilters.
The type of batting you use depends on personal preference. And if you can’t decide between cotton or polyester for your quilting projects, you could always use a poly/cotton blend batting.
What does Loft mean?
Looking at the batting you’ll see that it sometimes will say low loft batting or high loft batting on the packaging.
Loft is the thickness of the batting, if the batting has a higher loft that means the batting is thicker. And lower loft means thinner batting.
If you want a thicker quilt or one that has a puffy look, then you’ll need a high-loft batting. And if you want a thinner quilt, then you’ll need a low loft thin batting.
What does Scrim mean?
Scrim is something that is sometimes added to batting to help keep the batting together. It’s a stabilizer that helps the fibers of the batting to not stretch out of shape. And batting with scrim is usually more stable.
If your batting has scrim you can do your quilting farther apart, without having to worry about you batting wadding up. But, I would still not quilt too far apart.
You can get batting with scrim or without scrim. And the packaging will usually tell you if the batting has scrim in it.
What size does batting come in?
Quilt batting comes in all quilt sizes. You can get batting sized for baby quilts, king quilts and more.
The label on the batting shows what size of quilt it’ll make and the size of the batting in inches. And if you’re working on your first quilt I would recommend starting with a smaller sized quilt like a baby quilt or a lap quilt.
Warm and Natural Quilt Batting
Now I’m going to show you some of my favorite brands of batting. The first brand is Warm and Natural quilt batting. This is cotton batting and is a favorite for a lot of quilters and is said to be the best for machine quilting. And this is great for quilts and other craft projects.
Warm and Natural batting is needle-punched battings. That means that the batting is felted together with thousands of needles to create a stronger batting with a lower loft.
Warm and Natural batting is made by The Warm Company. And The Warm Company also makes the Insul-Bright heat resistant batting. Insul-bright is the batting that I use to make pot holders with.
Above I mentioned some of the other things cotton batting can be used for besides quilt. But, cotton batting is also what is usually used for wall hangings.
Fairfield Quilt Batting
Here is a polyester batting. This Fairfield poly-fil batting is a great choice of batting. Like other polyester battings, you can get this batting in low loft batting, extra loft batting and high loft batting.
And I have used this brand of batting, I have used it with hand quilting and machine quilting. It works great with both of them.
I think this is actually the batting I used on my first quilt. And with my first quilt I hand stitched the whole thing, from piecing to quilting.
Hobbs Heirloom Batting
Here is a great cotton blend batting. This batting has both cotton and polyester fibers and this is also a fusible batting.
That means you don’t have to baste the quilt, you just iron the top of the quilt and the other layers together. And the fusible batting makes the layers stick together.
Fusible batting is a great time saver and a good choice, because you don’t have to pin or baste stitch the layers together before quilting.
Mountain Mist Quilt Batting
Here is the last batting brand in this post. Mountain Mist batting is another polyester batting. This is an excellent choice for summer quilts, because this batting is thinner and gives the quilts a flatter look.
This is the best batting choice if you want your quilt to have that antique look. Mountain Mist batting also comes in cotton batting and cotton polyester blends batting.
Conclusion
There are other different brand and different battings for you to choose. But, I just put 4 different brands in this post.
The choice of batting for your quilt is all up to you. And even though there are probably quilters that will disagree, I don’t think you can pick the wrong batting. Because it’s all just personal preference and which fits your budget.
Trying different batting types is a great idea. Because you really don’t know what you’ll like until you’ve used different battings.
And I hope that this post will help you find the right batting. Thank you for reading this post.
Check out some of my other quilting posts
- 25 Adorable and Free Baby Quilts Patterns to Sew.
- The Ultimate Guide to Quilt Sizes and Dimensions.
- All You Need to Know About Fat Quarters for Quilting.
- How Many Charm Packs Do I Need for a Quilt?
- Quilting Terms You Need to Learn: WOF and More.