Open Line Friday–What’s YOUR Choice of Batting

90 responses to “Open Line Friday–What’s YOUR Choice of Batting”

1. Thank you soo much for the advise on pot holders & I am going to use wool batting on a runner for my coffee table & am glad to hear moisture won’t go through.

2. I mostly make quilts that will be used frequently so I use warm and natural cotton batting. I do use clover chalk wheels for a lot of my markings, I have also recently purchased the frixion marking pens as they do iron out and they have several different colors for you to use depending on the fabric color you are using.

3. I’m loving working with Winline’s 100% Bamboo batting–very warm and drapey, and gives good stitch definition. Also it is naturally anti-microbial, so resists molds and mildew (very important where I live!)

   1. I, too , love their bamboo batting. However, It’s a lot more flammable.

4. Quilters Dream has become my favorite batting. I use 80/20 low loft for most of my quilts but if I am making a baby blanket or something that will be washed frequently I use there polyester. I ordered the Dream Green because it was on sale and I really like that. There polyester batting quilts like the cotton and is very soft. I shy away from wool as my husband has a wool allergy and I am afraid it will come through the cotton and affect him. The bamboo is more expensive and I don’t see an advantage over The Dream Green so have never tried it. Since I live in ND I haven’t found a use for the silk batting.

5. I like Hobbs Wool batting best but only on my very best quilts, otherwise I use Hobbs 80/20 cotton blend. My fav marking pen is the blue water erasable pens. I mark mostly on white/off white/beige so a chalk pen doesn’t work for me. I am playing with many of your designs Lori. Working on a Christmas themed quilt and have used your packages (love ’em), trees, snowflakes, snowman (love ’em…very clever stitching) and many more. So much fun to stitch! Thanks much!

   1. Send a photo! Sounds adorable!

6. I used that Clover yellow chalk on a quilt and it does not come out. It must have sifted into the batting. I spend a couple of years making a Grandmother’s flower garden and have washed the quilt several times and you can still see the yellow chalk marks. I would not use the Clover products.

   1. I agree! I used a blue Clover chalk marker on a baby quilt and could not get it out. Grrrr…….never again!

7. Batting…..I love Hobbs Silk and their Cotton/Wool batting as well as their wool are my favorites

8. Thanks for some good tool hints! I am anxious to read more comments on batting. I use Warm & Natural for my quilts. i want to try a wool batting at some point because I love quilts, but I don’t like sleeping under them – too heavy.

   1. Wool is very light.

9. I mostly use quilter’s dream 100% cotton. Occasionally I get Hobb’s 100% cotton.
   For marking I like the blue wash away. The chalk markers – especially white, are great. I was told (at the Houston quilt fest) my many name quilters, NOT to use the colors, like with the Dritz chalk set. I use the yellow chalk wheel and remove it asap.

10. Several friends and I were lucky enough to go to a Jamie Wallen class in September, and he was very emphatic – do NOT use frixion pens – the colors will come back! So I now use them for doodling!

    1. Hi Jo-Anne, thank you for your input. I’ve often thought about that to be honest and it’s always niggled at me a bit, but then my brain changes gear and thinks, well, they’ve been used by the quilting community for quite a long time now and no-one has made reference to the marks coming back! Personally, the way I work around this “possible” dilemma is to use the colour that is closest to the thread I will be using there regardless of it disappearing with the iron. Jet Pens have every colour you can think of in the FRIXION PEN range whereas most of our usual quilting stores and online have blue, red and black mostly. I hope this is useful to someone ?

       1. I don’t use the frixion pens to mark quilts because of a discussion on them I read a few years ago. The markings can and do come back if the quilt gets very cold. You can test this with your freezer. It might not be a problem for a lot of people but if you live in the north and happen to leave a quilt out in your car during the winter, you will see those markings come back. You can iron the quilt and they will disappear again. This was a few years ago. Maybe they have changed their formula in the newer pens.

11. Hi Pam, yes you’re right about that, the markings will come back if the quilt is subject to very cold temperature. My guess is then that depending on what you are using it for. It could be to mark a quilt for quilting, or for embroidery or as a sewing line. If it’s or quilting then you might want to use something else but if it’s for a sewing line it perfectly fine. I think the formula is still the same. ?

12. I love warm & natural. It is easy to long arm with, it puffs up just a little when washed, it is warm, it lays the way I like.