Black batting - Important?
 

How important is it to use black batting on a dark quilt?
My backing is black and my quilt top is medium shades with brighter sections, all in batiks.

Thanks!

Watson

I have made a few quilts with dark and black mat. and used white or off white batting and did not have any problems.

I've never used black batt, and I make lots of dark quilts.

I had a very dark, all batik quilt with dark backing. Used W&N batting w/no issues whatsoever. Go for it!

Long, long time ago, I used a black batting because the quilting police told me I had to. Now I am smarter and do what I want to do. It was for a hubby quilt. The odd thing is that it's so heavy. I know it was 100% cotton but it was thicker than usual. I quickly used it up and will never purchase it again, too heavy for Florida.

It might be good to do a small sample using your normal white batting and having the sandwich use the same fabrics as are in the quilt. Then you could get an idea of how the white batting behaves. Maybe the tightly woven batiks would help resist bearding too.

I have used Hobbs 80/20 black and love the weight of it. It's about the same weight as W&N or a little bit lighter. I don't find that it makes a difference in a darkly pieced quilt, unless the fabric in the quilt is a loose weave and the batting might show through. I don't have any fabric in my stash that is loosely woven, so it doesn't matter with my quilts. Most times I forget and just use W&N anyway. Since I buy it at Jo-Ann's with a 50% off coupon, it is a lot more economical to use.

Never had a problem using w&n nutural .........but I machine quilt, not hand quilt...perhaps that might make a difference.

I have made many quilts some light, and some dark. I have never had a problem with using light batting.

I have used black.

Just as it is important to audition your fabrics ... it is important to audition your batting!

However, the problem that I have found is that when I do a check of all the fabrics in the quilt, there tends to be something lighter, that I fear the black will shadow through, and make it look grubby and dingy. I often fall back to the beige/natural at that point.

Nothing wrong with black ... but be sure to check before you proceed, so you are not disappointed later.