They recommend washing wool in cold water and drying flat or machine drying without heat; maybe others here can say if they have good results drying in the dryer normally. For a son-in-law, you might want to have the quilt as carefree as possible, so maybe use a batting that is less fussy. I haven't used polyester batting myself, but the Hobbs cotton/poly blend is very popular, would be carefree, and they say polyester is the warmest of battings. Quilter's Dream makes a polyester batting that they say is as warm as down.