You can create a quilt top and have fleece backing, lots of us put fleece on the backs of our quilts. Batting is a personal choice. I always put batting in mine,but many people do not-might depend on the climate. How warm/heavy do you want the quilt to be? If you do not use batting you can do a minimum amount of quilting-just end to hold it all together, or you can just tie it. Fleece is not difficult to stitch through; I always use a nice,new sharp needle in the size appropriate for the thread I am using, loosen the top tension just a little and lengthen the stitch length.