Warm & Natural batting - quilt is so thin after a year!
 

I haven't finished many quilts, only four... and three of those are rarely used. The one that has been washed many times over is the last quilt I made, which I gave to a friend when she had a little boy. When I gave it to her, I told her I meant for it to be used and she definitely has! I was at their house today for the little boy's first birthday party and I happened to see the quilt laying across the banister when I ducked upstairs to change my own little girl's diaper.

It is so thin! It started out thin anyway, but now it is so thin you would hardly know it had batting in it. I used a crib sized package of cotton Warm and Natural, that I think I bought at Joann. The stitching, fabric, and binding have all held up beautifully at least. Well, the fabric has faded a tad but maybe that is just because I pulled most of it from the "organic" shelf at the quilt shop.

So help me out... did I go wrong? Is the batting at the chain shops lower quality even though it is the same brand as at the LQS? Should I always be using more than one layer of batting? I have been thinking I want to try a couple layers of batting in my next quilt, which I will hopefully be quilting in a few weeks, but that was just because I wanted the quilting to pop more. I definitely want my quilts to stand up over time, and to be warm. It had never occurred to me a year of frequent washing would do that to the batting.

And now I have just realized it has been a year since I finished a quilt. Sigh. Do the 5 UFOs help mitigate that at all??

Cotton batting softens with every washing. That is one of its most endearing characteristics.

I am wondering if your expectations are more along the lines of modern puffy comforters than traditional quilts. Have you ever handled vintage quilts? They were all made with cotton batting, and all would be considered "thin" along the lines you describe. So it seems to me that the baby quilt you made is responding to use as I would have expected.

If you want a puffier quilt, then you may want to try a polyester batting such as Hobbs PolyDown. One advantage of poly over cotton batting is that the quilt will dry much faster (and will be puffier, similar to modern comforters).

Some people do double up Warm and Natural, or use a layer of W&N with a layer of polyester batting on top to add puff. The problem with two layers of W&N, especially in a large quilt, is that the quilt will become quite heavy. Some people like heavy quilts, but many do not. Aside from being heavy on top of you when you sleep, they can become quite difficult to handle because of the weight, especially when wet. Two layers of poly would be very puffy, but also very difficult to quilt.

I doubt that the fabric fading is due to organic fabrics. All cotton fabrics fade with exposure to light as well as to washing. In fact, fabrics are "fade rated" in terms of number of hours. I haven't checked in a long time, but I believe an industry standard of colorfastness is something like 70 hours of exposure to light these days.

The first quilt I ever made was a baby quilt using traditional cotton batting. I had the opportunity to see it about 20 years later. Knowing the mother, it had been washed and dried on hot many times. The binding was frayed and the fabrics were faded, but the quilt was still much loved and soft as a cloud to the touch. The owner used it on special occasions for newborn cousins.

I can't compare the Warm and Natural I get at JoAnns with a quilt store. I buy mine at JoAnns. It holds up just fine and is very warm. I have one on my bed made with Warm and Natural that has been on there for several years. And it is washed often. The appearance is thin. But, that's how it looked when I quilted it.

I don't know if the quality is thinner at places like Joannes but I have always used warm and natural I usually buy a bolt of it at a time.

I think it's a misconception people have, who are unfamiliar with traditional quilts, that they're meant to be puffy (more like a comforter). The only quilt I had experience with until I started quilting was one made for us many years ago. I took it to be typical, but it was made with polyester batting and quilted only in the ditch around very large pieces. It was very airy and puffy. You can imagine my surprise when I finished my first quilt made with Warm and Natural, and found it to be very flat, stiff and heavy. I have since found that wool batting will give an airier, puffier, lighter weight feel than Warm and Natural. I haven't tried any of the 100% cotton battings yet. Warm and Natural is cotton with a polyester scrim.

How wonderful for you to see the quilt has been loved and used! Sounds like your quilt gift was a huge success! Maybe you could make him another "big boy" quilt now? I am a fairly new quilter and don't have any experience with a 'well used' quilt for guidance, but nice to see your gift is loved.

My family likes heavy quilts, none of the light as air ones. For those quilts I use cotton batting between to layers of flannel. I buy white and brown (or any dark) flannel by the bolt when on sale. I wash the flannel in hot water and dry in hot dryer before using. For a really lightweight quilt I use one layer of flannel for the batting. This works for a tablecloth quilt, or any quilt you want to have drape.

I like the W & N because it is easy to handquilt thru & yes it is flatter but I like that also! Different batts for different folks!

Down here, we mostly like thinner quilts because we have so much summer. Putting 2 or 3 quilts on the bed makes more sense than having one really thick one we can only use for a few weeks. All my beds have quilts on them all year round and most are filled with W&N. I have used the Hobbs a couple of times and eventually it is as flat as the W&N which suits our lifestyle perfectly. If I was making a quilt for someone who lived in the northern states or Alaska, I would probably double up on any batting I used or use blankets inside as one of the layers. I like that the W&N quilts aren't so heavy that you can't work with them. I don't like that it takes so long to dry a really big one.

I like a quilt to be just a bit loftier and warmer so I use two layers one Warm and Natural and one thin layer of poly. The two layers give the quilting much more definition.