Originally Posted by Tropical
Has anyone heard of using newspaper as batting in a quilt? I was talking to a young woman Walmart associate today who wanted to know if she could help me locate what I was looking for in the magazine department. I was looking for a quilting magazine to browse through while waiting for my DH. She started telling me about three quilts her deceased grandmother had quilted and she had inherited. She was looking for someone to restore them. She proceeded to explain that newspaper had been used for batting. I thought that was a rather odd choice because how would you ever be able to clean them. Just wondering if anyone had heard of that practice.
Oh my yes....not only heard of but my first large size quilt was made this way. My dear MIL Emma taught me. The newspaper was not batting but foundation paper. It is the old sew and flip thing. The newspaper was left in during the whole process, batting added, quilting etc. Then the quilt is washed and the newspaper melts away. Back then we used salvaged flannel from old clothes, pieces sewn together as a flat batt, before sandwiching...good cotton batt was not available and so was a polyester batt. We lived out no the ranch and the local shopping area had no fabric store per SE, just a craft general store that sold flats. We would scrounge white elephant sales and the thrift shops for old wool blankets and good condition sheets to make our backs and battings. I won a blue ribbon at the fair with that old quilt that was loved to death and it's self became the batt in a couple of baby quilts. I think Alex Anderson did a show on using newspaper for foundation on her old show on the Home and Garden network. You might find it archived there.