Hobbs Poly-Down and bearding
 

Has anyone had any experience with Hobbs Poly-Down bearding through black fabric? I know they make a dark batt, but their website says it is treated to prevent bearding. Any advice?

Just about any batting can beard. The worst are usually wool or polyester, but it is not unknown for cotton batting to beard. The Hobbs Poly-Down is treated to prevent bearding, but this is not a guarantee that it won't beard. Much depends on the backing fabric used, the size of the needle, the strength of the machine "punching" the needle through the quilt sandwich, etc.

Do you have a quilt with a black fabric backing? If so, will you be machine quilting it on a longarm or on a domestic sewing machine? Is the fabric batik, or regular quilting cotton, or.....

What would be your reason for preferring Poly-Down to the Hobbs 80/20 black batting? The reasons I can think of would be that you want a higher loft and/or faster drying time for the quilt. If so, you have to weigh your reasons for wanting Poly-Down against your reasons for using the black batting (with primary reason being security so that, if the batting does beard through the black batting, it won't show).

Treated, as in it has scrim? Did you follow the directions as to placement of the scrim?

Is this what you used???
http://www.hancocks-paducah.com/SHOP...-Quilt-Batting

This is their polyester batting. Polyester batting can migrate more than the 80/20 cotton batting with scrim. I had the same thing happen to me with a black dominant quilt 25 years ago. That is when I made the permanent switch to cotton batting with scrim. I donated the rest of this polyester batting to a church group.

Just want to mention that polyester battings have improved greatly in the last 25 years. Some manufacturers use spray bonding and some use heat bonding to help prevent migration or bearding of fibers, and these work pretty well. Still no guarantees on any kind of batting, however.

I used Hobbs Poly Down for years when I was long arm quilting and never had any bearding.

I was told to put the scrim side against the backing to prevent bearding.

I hand quilt and Hobbs Poly-down is my favorite for hand quilting. I've never had trouble with bearding, but I don't think I've ever had black backing either.

I believe there is less chance of bearding with hand quilting. It seems to be a machine quilting issue.

Just noticed your baby in your picture. We have had 5 bully babies. Our current is Molly. We rescued her in April and she is about 3.