Quilting with raw cotton as baten
 

Both of my grandmothers used cotton straight from my gd'father's gin. The cotton had been ginned, no seeds, just the loose fiber. Neither one of them knew what bought batting was. It was from them that I learned how to quilt.

In all the years around both of them, I don't remember how they laid the cotton out. I mostly just helped with the piecing. They would use a machine to piece, but all quilting was done by hand.

I've just been given a large crocker sack of fresh cotton and would like to try my hand at least on a small quilt using this cotton. Does anyone have experience with loose cotton? I'd appreciate any help or ideas.

Never done it, but it seems to me you'd have to comb it out and lay the combed cotton down as thin and even as possible and use a couple of thin layers. Then you would need to quilt it VERY densely to keep it from shifting. Would be hard to keep it in place while quilting. Maybe someone else who has done it will chime in. Laying it between fusible stabilizer comes to mind as well.

Okay, I have 3 quilts that were created in the 1930's and 1940's from North Carolina. They were created by my Great-Grandmother, Grandmother, and my mother. They are stuffed with cotton balls right off the cotton fields. All three are having a great quilting bee in heaven. However, they all told me to never, never wash the quilts because they will become flat. So they were always, beaten and laid on the grass in the sun to clean them. They still look like they were way back then. One was quilted by my Great-Grandmother with string that she got off the meat packages put in brown paper. My Grandmother, used yarn (that she made on this wooden contraption and cotton balls) to hand quilt after putting the cotton balls batting in the quilt made from feed sacks that she washed after my grandmother got them from him (if he didn't need them to use in the barn) to quilt. These quilts are treasured and will always be in my heart.

I have not seen it done, but have seen the carding combs that were used, much the same way wool was prepared by brushing back and forth. I have a utility quilt made for me in 1957-58 and the cotton batting was bought at the dime store. It looks like the batting or wadding used in upholstery padding. There was no pattern for the top, just big pieces of feed sacks, same used for the backing. I've also seen photos of beautiful white and off-white quilts made by slaves in Virginia.
Barbara Brackman has written a lot on quilt history. Perhaps you can find more information on her website.

No thanks. I will continue to use mainly high loft polyester batting,

Maybe a museum like the quilt museum in Paducah could answer your question.

I use cotton batting but I"m not dealing with cotton balls. Too much work for me.

How interesting. My Guild just had a program on antique quilts. Alma Moates was the speaker and she described her grandmother peeling batting off of paper straight from the cotton gin it was on wide rolls. At one point she visited a Gin and was shown a part of the machine where stray fibers were blown onto the paper. It wasn't the main line of cotton just a way to catch the stray fibers. It could be then rolled and used as batting. If you Grandfather had a gin maybe it was the same for your grandmothers. Sometimes real cotton was used and was considered, wadding. You could try to "comb" the cotton between two wire brushes to straighten the fibers.

I think you would have to have a rack to keep the cotton from shifting around while quilting unless it was basted really, really well and even then I would worry that all the handling would shift it around prior to quilting the area.

And you would have to quilt very densely. No less than 2" apart. I have a roll of Mountain mist cotton batting that is at least 15 years old. No scrim just the cotton and the package says maximum distance for quilting is 2".

Interesting!!