Best Batting For Quilts
Batting in quilts is what makes our stitching pop. It adds either stiffness or drape, batting helps keep you warm, and most importantly it is what makes a quilt a quilt and not a sheet. We are going to cover all of the traditional types of batting and a few things you can do when you don’t want batting.
quilt
/kwilt/
noun
a warm bed covering made of padding enclosed between layers of fabric and kept in place by lines of stitching, typically applied in a decorative design.
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Types of Batting For Quilts
There are 6 main types of batting but each type has blends and we will cover those as well. We won’t really talk about various brands unless there is a major difference with a single brand when compared to the rest on the market.
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Cotton
100% Cotton batting is what you want if you want that antique crinkle quilt. That’s because cotton batting is going to shrink between 3% and 5%. Typically you do not prewash cotton batting, most say not to but Warm & Natural does have prewashing instructions if you want cotton without the crinkle.
Cotton batting is one of the thinnest batting on the market so when you quilt it you won’t get the big poofs in your quilting. The poof is what we call loft and cotton is low loft. If you want your quilt puffier check out these tips.
Cotton Blends
Cotton will be blended with either polyester or wool. We will talk about cotton-poly blends first because they are the most common. You will get 3%-5% shrinkage with the blends.
Cotton-Poly Blend Batting
The 80-20 blend is going to give a little more loft, aka puffiness, than 100% cotton but it’s also going to give the weight of cotton. A note about cotton-poly batting for quilts, some are chemically bonded. Warm & Natural uses a cotton scrim to hold everything together, Hobbs uses a resin to bond the fibers, and Fairfield says their batting is lightly misted with a polyester bonding.
Pellon makes a 60-40 blend that has 2%-3% shrinkage. They also have instructions on how to prewash it to shrink it before quilting but also a warning about not washing before completed. I would probably err on the side of caution and not prewash.
Cotton-Wool Blend
Hobbs is the only company I know of that does a cotton-wool blend and it is an 80-20 blend. They do suggest practicing with this batting before using it in a project. You can read more about it here.
Polyester Batting
Polyester batting is poofy but it is not as warm as cotton. It does come in different lofts and you can layer it to make it even puffier. Polyester batting can also be used in upholstery. You also will not get the shrinkage that you get with cotton.
Wool Batting
When I think of wool batting I typically think of Hobbs but Fat Quarter Shop is now producing wool batting too. Wool is very breathable allowing excess heat to escape and it has a nice loft. It will shrink 3%-5% like cotton but unlike cotton you do not want to put projects made with wool in the dryer. That will cause the wool to felt and your quilt will no longer have the softness and drape.
Bamboo Quilt Batting
My LQS carries bamboo batting on the roll and it is so soft. It quilts up similar to cotton. It’s not widely available online and there doesn’t seem to be consistency among brands. Also, the big brands that I normally use like Hobbs, Warm & Natural, and Fairfield are not in the bamboo market. Bambo is an eco-friendly choice for batting.
There are a few online LQS’s that carry 100% Bamboo batting for quilts. Pellon makes one that is 47% rayon made from bamboo, 46% cotton, and 7% polypropylene. Quilters Dream doesn’t have percentages for their blend but it is bamboo, silk, cotton, and Botanic Tencel. Botanic Tencel is made from eucalyptus pulp. Fat Quarter Shop’s bamboo is a 50-50 blend with cotton.
Silk Batting
I have always wanted to make a quilted skirt with silk batting. Silk batting is thin, perfect for coverlets, aka summer quilts, and garments. It doesn’t have much loft either, just 1/8“. Hobbs is the only one that does a true silk batting, the Quilters Dream pops up in searches but it’s the bamboo blend mentioned above. The Hobbs is 90% silk and 10% polyester.
Other Batting For Quilts Options
There are other things you can use as the batting layer in your quilts. Paul’s first quilt top was made of denim so already incredibly heavy, he used a down alternative comforter as his batting. Now when he trimmed his quilt to add the binding we had a mess but that’s another story.
Trompe-l’œil Quilting
This is a French art term for creating a 3-D effect on a 2-D object. I watched a quilter do this but for the life of me I can’t remember who or where. Google was no help because it gave me patterns for the top and not the actual finishing. I want to say it was either Love of Quilting or Quilting Arts on PBS. What she did was add polyester batting in certain spots of the quilt to make that part super puffy. It was so cool looking.
Fleece
The Warm Company and Pellon both make a fusiable fleece batting that you can just press your sandwich together and go straight to quilting. It is typically used for smaller projects like art quilts, wall hangings, and table runners.
