What is scrim in batting
 

What is scrim in batting and can you use it for long arm quilting? Do you have to prewash or are there any other things we should know about it? I bought some Pellon made batting with scrim the other day. I had heard about scrim but can't remember what. Would appreciate help. Thank you.

Scrim is a polyester grid that helps anchor cotton fibers. If you buy batting that says it's 97% cotton, it's because they've added the grid to stabilize the cotton fibers. It helps keep the cotton fibers from separating when the quilt is washed.

When you use 100% cotton batting, you need the quilting stitches close together to keep the batting from separating. With scrim added to the cotton batting you can use wider spacing between your quilting stitches because the scrim will keep the fibers stable.

A lot of cotton batts are needlepunched through scrim now. Makes the cotton much more stable, can quilt lines further apart, etc. Scrim can make handquilting more difficult, but is fine for machine quilting. In general, you want the scrim side touching the backing of the quilt so when you machine quilt, the needle is punching the batting in the same direction as in the factory. (That's if you can tell which side has the scrim. Warm and Natural describes how to tell which side theirs is, but I don't know about other manufacturers.)

Incidentally, not all batts that are needlepunched are needlepunched through scrim. Quilter's Dream cotton is needlepunched but does not have a scrim.

There is no reason to prewash a batting that has scrim.

Thanks for the info. I had forgotten what scrim was, thanks for the reminder.

Yes, thank you for the info. I had heard you don't want to by batting with scrim, don't know why. This new bat by Pelon
Is a bit more lofty than warm and natural it seems.

More than likely that warning came from an old school hand quilter. There is no reason not to use a batting with Scrim when machine quilting, either on domestic or LA. Tons of people use W&N and it has scrim. Even many hand quilters use it. I find it too difficult to get nice small uniform stitches and it doesn't needle as nicely by hand so if someone told you that it was probably old cautions handed down that are no longer valid.

Or a batting company that doesn't use scrim and wants your business...Hmmm?

Thank you for the info. For a new quilter this forum is awesome!

Take a small piece of batting and start ripping it apart and you will see the actual scrim. Scrim is like a stabilizer for your batting so it won't shift when washing. Some older quilts the batting will form small wads of batting in corners. I don't do much hand quilting but I wouldn't use anything with scrim if I plan to hand quilt the top.