You could use a fairly light weight fleece fabric instead of batting. I think it would wear better as the batting is meant for enclosure. I think the instructions meant that you could use the white batting inside your quilt so that the color of the batting would not show through the light colored patches on the top. I think you could use it on the top if you were making a wall hanging or something that would not be washed a lot but I don't know why you would want to do that really. A good quality flannel or fleece would probably be a better choice.