Originally Posted by amma
Can you preshrink cotton batting and then use it for a wall quilt?
You can certainly do that with Warm n Natural, which is a cotton batting needle-punched through a scrim. The scrim makes it extremely stable.
Old-fashioned cotton battings such as Mountain Mist Blue Ribbon (my favorite) are not needle-punched through a scrim. The package says not to preshrink it for a reason -- because it is so likely to shred in the process. An 80/20 batting might hold up a little better to the process, but shrinkage is more minimal for that kind of batting so it probably isn't worth the effort.