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What’s the one quilting supply I can’t live without? Quilt batting.

Good quality batting.

You don’t want to mess around here.

You probably just spent a couple hundred dollars on fabric and a good bit of your time making a beautiful quilt top.

You’re about to put it all together and finish the quilt.

You need good batting.

I’ve gotten a lot of questions lately asking for batting recommendations. Luckily – that’s an easy question for me to answer.

Warm & Natural 100% cotton batting.

It is – hands down – the best batting I’ve ever used. Every once in a while the place I shop runs out and I need a batting right away so I buy another brand and it’s always terribly disappointing.

Here’s what’s so awesome about it. . .

It doesn’t beard. That’s when the fibers of the batting start to migrate out the front of your quilt. It looks awful and there’s no way to fix it once it starts. 🙁

It’s the perfect weight – not too heavy, not too light.

It’s beautiful for hand or machine quilting. That’s important to me because I like to do both.

You can quilt up to 10″ apart. This is really important to me for the style of quilts I design. Lots of battings have to be quilted 2-4″ apart. All of my quilts are designed based on a 10-inch block – so with this batting you can make one of my quilts without any quilting at all within the block – just stitch in the ditch. (I always quilt inside my blocks too – but it’s because I want to, not because I have to.)

The amount of shrinkage is perfect. See the crinkly Buttonholes quilt at the top? That’s exactly the amount of crinkle I like. Quilt your quilt without pre-shrinking the batting. Bind it and toss it in the washer and dryer. When it comes out it will be perfect.

It doesn’t shed cotton. I’m lazy and often leave the batting hanging out around the edges of my quilt while I do the quilting. Some battings will shed cotton fibers all over outside of the quilt while I work – which means I have to painstakingly remove them with masking tape when I’m all done. That doesn’t happen with Warm & Natural.

It holds up to lots of machine washing and drying. I’ve had some of my quilts for many years now – and I use them. That means they’ve been washed and dried many, many, many times. The ones with Warm & Natural look like new – no shifting or bunching at all.

So there you go! Lots of independent quilt shops carry Warm & Natural. As far as big box stores go, Joann’s seems to always have it and also carries it online. It comes on a roll so you can buy yardage, but I usually get the precut battings in bags – just because it’s easier for me to store.

Do you have batting scraps you don’t want to throw away? This post shows you a thrifty tip – how to piece those batting scraps together.

These links go to all my posts about quilt supplies.

• Quillt Sizes and Supplies Needed
• My Favorite Tools and Supplies and Where to Get Them
• Cuddle Fleece
• My Favorite Batting
• How to Piece Batting Scraps (a thrifty tip)
• Thread – no post here, just a reminder that you need thread. 🙂
• Putting Fusible Adhesive to the Test
• Which Products Do I Use When? Freezer Paper, Fusible Adhesive, or Sulky Sticky Fabri-solvy?

Finished with this topic?

Return to the Let’s Make a Quilt main Table of Contents.

Move on to the lessons about cutting and quilting your background blocks.

Happy quilting!