Batting
 

Some of you have indicated you shrink your batting before you use it in a quilt. How would you do this with Warm and Natural?

These are the instructions from the W&N site:
https://warmcompany.com/products/war...bs_productcare

I just open it up & scrunch it into a loose ball, put it in the laundry tub, get it wet, then press down on the batt while it's in the tub to get rid of as much water as I can. Then roll it in a towel, again to remove as much moisture that way. Then I put it the dryer. When you remove the wet batt from the tub, lift it from the bottom, don't grab a fold from the top. While drying, check the lint trap often and rearrange the bulk. Finally, I try and take it out when it is almost dry, and lay it on a bed, smoothing any wrinkles. In any case remove promptly from the dry and let it cool flat.

I bought a "Dream" brand batt--100% cotton--yesterday at my LQS. No prep necessary according to the package. Life is too short to wash a batt--sounds like a real hassle to me.

I can understand fluffing in the dryer but why would anyone have to wash it?

1)
Same here. by the time I get to that point, I'm done! (Well, almost.)

It's not that you have to wash it, but some people want to get the shrinkage out of the way before they put the batt in a quilt.

Some people don't like the puckered look that happens to a quilt when the batting shrinks. Sue Garman would preshrink all her battings, even polyester, which isn't supposed to have any shrinkage. Here is where she blogged about it and how she went about doing it.
http://suegarman.blogspot.com/2013/03/

The Warm and Natural batting I have is probably over 20 years old - don't remember when I bought it.

Anyway - I have a top loading washer. I fill it with hot water and a small amount of laundry detergent - put the batting in the water - let it agitate on "slow/gentle" for a few minutes until the batting is thoroughly wet - stop the washer and let it soak until the water cools down - then I drain it and let the rinse cycle do its thing.

Then I dry it in the dryer. It survives this treatment wonderfully.

I prefer the "flat as possible" look - so that's why I do this.

At the time I did this, I was not "into" measuring things before and after washing - so I am unable to tell you what the shrinkage was.

I do try to minimize the time that the batting is agitated.

Be sure to read the directions that come with your batting!!!!!! I almost dunked some Quilter's Dream batting - the directions that said not to were in very small print on the back side of the label.

For some battings, pre-shrinking improves ease of hand quilting. Fairfield cotton batting is one that benefits greatly from this treatment.