I am trying to finish a quilt that I think I will hand tie. Have never hand tied before. I have read lots here so not worried about actual tieing. Two questions

1. What type of batting works best? Warm & natural or poly? I do not mind the fluffyienss of the poly, but does it ball up after a while or stay where it is meant to be?

2. Do you sandwhich as regular quilts. Usually on a large quilt I pin baste. this is large

Thank you for your help

I am interested in the answer to this question as well

I would use the poly. Do the regular sandwich and I would pin baste and then tie. Be sure to show us your quilt:)

I would use the Warm and Natural because it is needlepunched through scrim. This makes it ***very*** stable.

Puffy polyester is more likely to ball up over time, especially if it is not needlepunched. Dream poly might be okay, as it is needlepunched (although not through scrim).

Check the batting wrapper to see how far apart quilting lines need to be. That is a good indication of stability for tying. I believe W&N has the farthest apart -- ten inches or so.

I haven't hand tied, but I would spray baste the same as I do for all my quilts. People hand quilt through spray basting, so I imagine it works fine for hand tying also.

Polyester doesn't ball up in my experience. My daughter still has her quilt from over 30 years ago and it's doing fine. It's mostly white, so it's been well washed. I quilted it about eight inches apart. Tying four inches would work well. That's how we do our church prayer quilts.

thanks for your tips

If you are worried about the batting shifting in a tied quilt why not put in a few rows of machine quilting as well. I have freqently done both on a tied quilt and have found using SID down the vertical and across the horizontal seam lines really helps to make sure that the batting is not moving ever! It's your quilt and you can combine techniques. I also sometimes mix hand quilting and machine quilting in the same quilt. It works for me.

you need to read the batting packages...there are ones that say---good for tied quilts----there are ones that say must be quilted every 2"-4"...those are NOT GOOD for tied quilts- that is when you get balled up batting in a washed quilt-

some batts are simply not made for tied quilts- the ones that are say so.

when you tie a quilt there should be a tie every 4"-(about) the way to distribute them is in a grid- and every where you place your fist should touch a tie-top, bottom, left, right....in squares.
when our group gets together to tie quilts we put them on a frame- bottom, batting, top, smoothed taut but not stretched. then we work together to pin basted it- around the edges-anywhere we think needs a bit of (hold) then we go about getting it tied.

I have used polyester batting and I stitch in the ditch first and then tie the quilt. By sewing in the ditch it keeps the polyester from balling up. I use crochet cotton instead of yarn to tie the quilt.

I like to tie quilts also. I used poly but then I also stitched in the ditch to make sure it would hold up.