Quilt Batting: How to choose the best one?

Ever thought about which quilt batting is best for your quilt? You have a quilt top done, and just before we get to quilt it, we need to make a quilt sandwich, and then the batting comes to mind. Which one should you use? 

How do you choose the correct and best quilt batting? 

In this post, we’ll discuss different types of batting and I’ll give you some suggestions to which quilt batting you should use.

How to Choose Quilt Batting

Questions to ask when choosing a batting:

• What is the style of the quilt
• What is the use for the quilt
• How much quilting is going to be done the quilt
• What will be the texture, thickness and how soft you want your quilt
• How will the drape be for the quilt
• Will it need to be warm for a certain season? 

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Types of quilt batting or quilt wadding

There are many types of batting these days covering various blend and purposes. 

Let’s talk about those pure 100% ones first.

100% Cotton Quilt Batting

This one is possibly the most popular one. Made from natural fibres and matches well with the usually the 100% cotton fabrics quilt top and backing. I guess it is also the safest one to use as it is just easier to say that your quilt is made of 100% cotton.

This is especially useful when making quilts for babies and kids. You can’t go wrong with cotton. 

Quilting can be done quite sparsely. You can quilt 8-10” apart and you’ll get a softer feel to the quilt or you can also quilt densely and have a little more structured quilt. 

Apart from that, the drape is pretty great with cotton batting, they are soft and comfortable.

As for warmth, it wouldn’t fall in the best category to give warmth but it’s great for all season. 

It gets pretty heavy if the quilt is large. 

Best Cotton Batting:

Here are some of the best-reviewed cotton battings:

•  Warm & Natural – crib size, twin size, queen size, king size
• Angel Crafts, Queen Size

100% Polyester Quilt Batting

This one is possibly a choice when you are in a tight budget. 

It’s cheaper and fluffier.

So if you are looking for a fluffy quilt, this would be the choice.

It is a little warmer than the cotton batting as it can be thicker. There are different thicknesses to the batting and usually, the idea is the thicker the warmer it will be. 

Polyester batting has a more structured shape and less drape. 

You will need to quilt it sparsely 4-10” apart to ensure you still have a drape to the quilt. Otherwise, it will just be stiff and not hugging-friendly. 

Another advantage to the polyester batting is that it resists mould and mildew. 

As for weight, it is much lighter than cotton. 

Best Polyester Batting:

Here are some of the best-reviewed Polyester Battings:

100% wool quilt batting

Another great choice for a quilt, as quilts are usually made for warmth. 

Wool quilt batting is lighter than cotton and has more loft. It is also a natural fibre which is always a great option. 

The drape is similar to the cotton batting, and yet it has more volume which in turn gives more warmth. 

Similar to the cotton batting, you can give it more structure while still having a reasonable drape if you have dense quilting on it. 

This is also a great batting choice if you want the quilting to pop a little more.  

100% Bamboo

This one is my personal favourite. I love the cool feel to the bamboo batting. 

It is also a natural fibre. 

It would fall on the least warm quilt but it is perfect for layering and perfect for summertime quilts. 

The drape is amazing with bamboo batting. You can basically quilt quite dense and yet have an amazing drape that can still hug the person wearing the quilt ever so softly. 

Since it is pretty light and thin, quilting does not pop up easily and it will seem very subtle. 

This one is also a great choice for baby quilts as it is light, airy and natural. 

As for the mix blend quilt batting, 

It will have similar traits to the 100% ones but with some characteristic of the other material blend into it. So you can get the balance between the two materials. 

80:20 Cotton: Polyester or 80:20 Cotton Wool Quilt Batting

Warmer and lofty quilt than 100% cotton

50:50 Bamboo: Cotton

Cooler Quilt with more drape

You get the idea. There so many blend choices out there it will be a platter of choices. They are also slight different from one brand to another just because the process of structuring the quilt batting is different. 

Special type quilt batting

Now apart form the material type batting, there are also battings that are made for specific purposes or special features. 

Such battings are:

Fusible Batting

I have only heard about this from a superb free motion quilter, Angela Walter. And it sounds like a great option if you don’t want to have lots of pins to remove when you are quilting your quilt. Most of the time I spray baste my quilt sandwich which is pretty similar towhead this fusible batting does. 

Basically you have the spray glue already on the batting and all you need to do is lay the quilt top and iron it on the batting to activate the adhesives. 

Makes it easier as you don’t have to go around spraying the adhesive instead. Pretty neat idea I would say. 

Insule-bright 

This one is the reflective batting that is made for making hot pads. I talked about this a lot in my series of 52 Weeks of Hot Pads. 

Since it has a reflective side, it will basically reflect heat back to the surface which is useful for hot pads purposes. 

So, now that we know the various type of quilt batting,

What is the best type of quilt batting?

It really depends on the type of quilt you want to have in the end. 

If you are a beginner, don’t get overwhelmed. Just go with 100% cotton or cotton blend and you’ll be safe. It is sort of the safe choice as it not to thick to work with and it gives a good amount of warmth and lovely texture. 

If you have been quilting a while, it is great to go and try a few different choices and who knows, you might like one over the other. 

What is the best brand for quilt batting?

They are pretty much the same from brand to brand. I have seen great reviews for various type of brands.

Some of the big companies are Warm & Natural, Hobbs Heirloom and Pellon. 

You can also try the new ones like this brand. –>> get swatch card HERE

I have tried a couple of Brands myself and I cannot see any differences. The materials matters more when it comes to choices of quilt batting.

Tips for buying quilt batting:

• Get the right size if you are buying for a certain size of your quilt top. Sizes of the pre-cut quilt batting are sometimes a little different. You’ll be safer to check the size of your final quilt top and add about 8″ to the sides and see whether the batting is cut to that size. 
• buy it on a roll if you make lots of quilts. You’ll save more in the long run. 

• look for 40-50% sale or coupon at Joann, Michael or Walmart store if you are in the US. If Spotlight is available in your country -there’s a similar discount like that too. 

While we are here, I also want o answer some the most popular questions I get from beginner quilters.

Can felt be used as batting?

The short answer is No. 

Long answer: Felt are created to be dense and they have fibres that are needle punched together so tightly that it will be hard for you to quilt on it. They are created for a different purpose though they look pretty similar. The structure inside is not the same and you don’t ever want to try it. 

I have tried and it is not a pretty picture. 

Can you use fusible fleece for quilting?

Fusible fleece are great for backing, As the inside of the quilt it will be quite tricky. For one it is very slippery to work with, making quilting a nightmare. Secondly, the fleece also have a different shrink rate to the cotton quilt top which may cause your quilt to shrink in a weird way when you wash them later on. So, I am definitely not recommending that. 

Well, I guess that’s it for the lengthy talk about quilt batting! I hope you will find some insight in this article.

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