Help! Which wadding?
Hi quilters,
I have come in search of some advice about which wadding (or batting if you are English like me!) to use for a quilt. I have just made a great big patchwork quilt front - 6' by 6' (180x180cm). I have got a lovely organic cotton sheet for the back. I just need something to go in the middle! I have made three smaller quilts in the past, when I was a child and it didn't occur to me to worry about materials, so I just got cheap polyester stuff in the shop down the road, and it seems perfectly OK but this is a serious quilt and I am wondering if I should do better.
There seem to be an awful lot of parameters to consider, so I am getting quite confused! Can anyone help?
1) Snugglyness (weight, warmth, thickness, squashiness and drape)
The quilt is a wedding present for a friend, so I've made it double bed sized. It could just be a flat bedspread I suppose, but it would be much nicer if it could work as a blanket in winter or be cozy to sit under on a sofa as well. So that would mean something medium warm, not too heavy and not too stiff; unless I go down the "just a bedspread" route. I know the puffyness of the quilt will affect how well my quilting pattern stands out, so puffy would be nice from that point of view, but that is a lesser consideration, I think.
2) Durability (structural stability, washability and decay resistance)
This has potential to be a proper "heirloom" quilt; as I've said it would be nice if it could be of use as a blanket and didn't have to be kept flat; and I want to be able to reassure my friend that she can wash it as she is hopelessly clumsy with tea (preferably in a 40 degrees Celsius favourite T-shirt strength wash, since the front and back can cope with that and it's enough to get things properly clean, but 30 degrees wool wash in the machine would be OK - just no messing about with dry cleaners!)
Also, I am intending to space out the quilting as much as possible as I am hand sewing in a hurry. For previous quilts I used wide-spaced pocketing on the back and just a few little hidden pegs of stitches on the front, and I like how it looks; I don't want the front to look quilted and I'd like to do a loosely spaced pattern of hearts on the back that wouldn't work with the squares on the front. So this batting needs to have it's own structural integrity as it won't be seriously sewn down. That seems to work fine for cheap polyester, would it be a problem for cotton? Is it important for the cotton to be sewn into pockets both sides - i.e. for the stitching to go through the front and the back? There seems to be huge variation on the recommended spacing, but at least there are guidelines on the packets!
Wool is out of the question as we have moth issues (as is silk and feathers). Polyester is mildew resistant etc.; I know plastic is meant to last for ever, but I am wondering if polyester loses quality over time, the way my gran's plastic photo albums from the '80s have gone crumbly and the rubber on the dashboard of my mum's old car just sort of melted. "Bamboo" sounds lovely but if it's bamboo viscose it may also potentially degrade? I know they have problems with viscose conservation at the V&A museum!
3) Availability (postage times, sizes, prices, messing about with washing machines)
I am in the UK, a lot of wadding sellers seem to be American and I need to get a move on so three week delivery times would be a major nuisance. The quilt is 6 feet square (so 2meters square would do), which I thought would be a standard size but it looks like most batting is significantly bigger or smaller so I'll probably have to cut something down to size: being available in something not much more than the right size would be a bonus, and if it's too small it's no use.
I am prepared to pre-shrink it but I'd rather not have to. The backing cotton says it will shrink in the first wash too, so if necessary I could quilt it to the back and then shrink them together, but the front is recycled from old clothes and bedclothes so it's been washed already and won't shrink.
I am prepared to pay extra to do this properly this time as it is a work of art, but any improvement on cheap polyester would have to be justifiable!
4) Environment etc. (fairtrade, organic, biodegradable)
I am trying to buy sustainable and fairtrade materials wherever possible. I've not spotted any fair trade wadding out there, and it seems most "organic" claims are unsubstantiated. I am torn between wanting the quilt to last for ever and not wanting to add any more plastic to the environment! The sustainability of bamboo depends a lot on whether it is bamboo wool or bamboo viscose, and they don't seem to specify (feeble US trading standards regulations again, it would seem).
The options:
It seems the options are polyester, cotton, bamboo or a mixture of the above.
There seems to be different ways of making cotton wadding, so that there would be a trade-off between fluffy and light but weak cotton that might not be able to cope with my lack of quilting pockets, and flat and heavy but strong needled cotton that is more like felt - is that correct, or can I have it both ways? Does anyone know any reason why I shouldn't just use polyester, and what to look out for in terms of "quality" - has anyone had experiences of old polyester decaying? How can I find out if bamboo fibre was produced mechanically or chemically, and does anyone know a good eco-friendly wadding supplier?
Sorry for the long-windedness - as you can see, I have got in a right old pickle!
Thanks.