Cheap Batting Mess
I just spent the entire weekend taking a quilt apart to remove the batting. 'shaking head at self' I bought a batting that seemed to have good reviews that was quite a bit cheaper in price than what I usually use. Unfortunately/or not, the batting must have changed since the reviews (which were multiple years old). Note here that the batting felt fine as I was using it, although it was pretty linty. I quilted my quilt and put the binding on it, then tossed it in the washer to remove all of the markings that I had put on it for the quilting pattern.
When I removed my quilt from the washer, it felt a little, call it bouncy/plush more in some areas then in others and really, really thin in other places. With hesitation, I tossed it in the dryer to find out what the final result would be. What else could I do but dry it.
Once dry it was definitely not what I expected. Even though I quilted with leaving less space between the quilting lines that it called for, it appeared that all of the batting that wasn't under the actual quilting stitches or binding stitches, was basically gone and the batting that was under the stitches, felt overly plush, swollen to about 4 times in thickness and definitely lumpy.
What a mess... I certainly couldn't leave it like that. So, toss or save.... I decided that I wanted to save the quilt I had just put so much time with so I sat down with my seam ripper and began the tedious task. Oh, my.... after removing the binding, quilting and backing, the entire piece or should I say pieces of batting looked like a Halloween cobweb and fell apart as I pulled it from the fabric.
I spent part of Friday, and all of Saturday and Sunday picking out all the stitches and removing all of the batting, not to mention, bagging up the remaining batting that I had bought and tossing it. There was no way I was going to let it ruin someone else's quilt.
I'd name the name of it, but alas with this being on the open internet, I'll keep that to myself. I just wanted to pass on the worst experience I've had with batting. Never before has this happened. And never again... I put in a new order for my regular batting, not even saying anything about the price! It is well worth it!