I've made a bunch of quilts and my all time favorite batting is wool batting by Hobbs. Wool is warm and light and like a wool suite, it breathes with you...mmmm warm and cozy...just like settling down on the couch with a cup of hot tea in my most favorite cup.
Want an antique quilt in short order? 100% cotton batting will give you an antique crinkled look to your quilt-if you don't prewash the fabric-I know the Quilt Police will be upset at me for saying that, but, I guess I've been lucky and have not had a bleeding top yet. You put the whole quilt in the wash, after it's completed, with 1/4 cup of Tide, then you put it in a dryer and when it's cooked, you get a quilt that looks quite old fashioned, which is what I like. I'm partial to White Rose by Mountain Mist.
If you are watching your pennies and don't want an instant antique, Hobbs 80/20 is reasonably priced and machine quilts like butter. Not quite as buttery as wool, but, you get what I mean.
There's lots of great batting companies out there, and I'm trying a new one 60/40, made specifically for long/short arm quilt machines. I'll probably not get the antique look, when I wash and dry the quilt.
The more cotton you have in the batting, the more the shrinking/crinkling you get when you wash and dry it.
What's your favorite batting? Anyone know any Quilt Police?
4 comments:
I quilt, but I'm no purist. I use el-cheapo synthetic batting for my quickie projects (splitting it into two layers). Cost has usually been a big issue. When I am doing something special, I use the Hobbs that you get at Michaels. 100% cotton batting you talk about was recommended to us in my quilting class, and they said the same thing about not prewashing if you want to get the crinkly look. So there you go. No quilt police around here.
I'm glad you're enjoying my pix. I use an Olympus Camedia Digital D-575 Zoom, which cost me $350 Cdn ($275 US?) about 4 years ago. Now they seem to be around $140 US. I love this camera, and there are only two things I would change about it. I wish it had fill-flash, so I can light my subject *gently* from the front, rather than terrorizing them with full flash (deer in the headlights). Also, I wish I had gotten more megapixels. This one has 3.2, and I could use 4 or 5.
The reason my pix look as good as they do has mostly to do with how I edit them. I do them all in CorelDRAW (Photoshop would be great too) and apply a few techniques to them. I adjust the light and the definition to my liking. I'm no photographer, so I really depend on my editing software.
Hope that helps :)
So far my favorite batting is Quilter's Dream, in Select weight. But for my next quilt, I've ordered their wool batting, and can't wait to see how I like it! I've not used wool yet, so I'm really excited to try it.
ps... thanks for the link!
I love the gorgeous heirloom cotton myself, expensive but so lovely to work with.
I had a run-in with the quilt police once. They told me there was not enough contrast in my quilt, not enough dark fabrics and tried to make me use fabrics that I hated. I left that quilting group!
I love to finish a quilt and have it look 50 years old. :)
I use Warm and Natural and don't wash my fabrics until they're all together in the finished quilt.
I, too, love the crinkles and bumps that appear after the quilt is washed and dried.
I've never had any colors run, although a member of the "quilt police" told me it was only a matter of time. That was somewhere around 20 years ago.
Best regards and thank you for a great post.
Darilyn
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