What is the best way to piece batting together
 

I am practicing my free motion quilting skills and don't want to dig into a fresh bolt of batting for a practice piece. I have a long piece of batting that I can cut in half lengthwise and get a pretty good size piece for a practice sandwich. Can I just spray baste it to the backing fabric or should I loosely hand stitch it together? I am using an old Singer 15-91 and I don't have a zig zag stitch, only straight stitch.

Thanks a bunch! Tracylynn

I hand sew my batting together with a long ladder stitch. I have made several twin to full size doing that.

I usually just hand whip stitch my batting pieces together. However since yours is just a practice piece, I think you would be fine just with the spray basting as the batting and cotton fabrics stick together pretty well. If your machine does a zigzag (my Juki only straight stitches) several on the Board say that is how they merge batting pieces together.

I have a bolt of lightweight fusible (Pellon) so I just make sure the sides butt up neatly then I cut and fuse 2" stripes to fuse the two layers together. I could always feel thru the quilt where I zig zag the batting and since my quilts were in competition, I just picked up this idea and went with it. Make some potholder and mug rug and practice your FMQ on something small. Then they can always be given away as gifts to friends.

joining batting pieces
 

I simply zigzag it on my machine. Long and wide zig zag holds it together just fine and is quick and easy. I use the joiner foot which helps.

Thanks for the tips!

I just butt the pieces together and zigzag stitch them together, no bulky seams.

I whip stitch the two together by hand. It goes rather quickly. I saw a tip however to use a strip of thin muslin and sew it to one piece of of the batting with the one edge of the muslin projecting beyond the batting. Butt the other piece of batting under the muslin and then sew that edge. Supposedly you don't end up with the bump that you sometimes do when you zig zag the two pieces of batting together. I have never tried this method but perhaps others have and can comment on it. You can also buy tape for the joining but it is too expensive for my taste.

I use batting tape. It's easy quick and does the job.

I recently used the iron-on batting tape from Keepsake Quilting and it worked very nicely. It is then and light weight. I will probably try a lightweight Pellon interfacing when I run out of this because it is probably cheaper and easier to get. I also felt this was simpler than zig zagging as my pieces didn"t want to stay together to good while I was trying to sew them. Have also hand whipped them but I still like the seam tape better.