Old 03-12-2010, 10:48 AM
  #10  
Prism99
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Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Western Wisconsin
Posts: 12,930
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I don't like to hand quilt through Warm n Natural because it is needepunched through scrim. This makes it difficult to push the needle through.

For an all-cotton batting, I like Quilter's Dream. It is needlepunched, but not through scrim, which makes it a very stable and uniform batt. I took a class from a famous quiltmaker who liked Fairfield's bonded all-cotton batting for quilting, but she said it needed to be soaked first for hand quilting because otherwise the bonding agents make the needle stick.

Many traditional cotton battings are difficult to hand quilt because the natural oil in the cotton creates drag on the needle, they are not uniform in depth, and some even have little pieces of the cotton seeds in them. I hand-quilted through my favorite machine quilting batting, Mountain Mist Blue Ribbon, exactly once; never again!

Wool and silk battings are supposed to be the easiest to hand quilt -- like quilting through butter. You can use these battings even when the top and backing are all cotton. Wool batts used to have bearding problems, but the newer ones are bonded and processed to prevent bearding.

Low-loft polyester battings are also supposed to be good for hand quilting.
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