I am almost finished my first quilt! The longest UFO imaginable. The quilt top is applique on cotton background. Batting Hobbs Cotton/Poly mix, backing fabric 100% cotton (old bedsheet). Now, there have been sections of it where it has been almost impossible to get a needle through. 90% has been easy, able to pick up a needle full of stitches, but there were a few places that I was only able to get one maybe two stitches and had to pull it through with pliers. Even happened in spots within the same hooped up area of fabric. One inch away would be like butter, then a hand sized patch tough as leather. I am only quilting the background and not through the appliqued pieces. Is it a flaw in the batting?

Not a problem with the batting. More than likely a problem with using a bed sheet for backing fabric. Sometimes the weave varies on a bed sheet, even with age, the tighter weave in some places can be difficult.

It might be your backing. Sheets are woven different than quilting cotton. I believe I've read that sheets have a higher thread count so they are much tighter than quilting cottons.

I've hand quilted with 100% poly and it was ok. I've hand quilted with wool and it was like butter-and looked beautiful.

I have only hand quilted one quilt using the Hobb Heirloom 80/20 mix and did not encounter this problem. The batting could be defective or it is possible the backing being a sheet. I have heard that the high thread count on some sheets can make for difficult quilting. It is possible small sections of the sheet are more tightly woven and because it was older maybe those cotton threads drew up tighter in normal shrinkage in small areas of the weave of the sheet. Very unusual problem. I am glad that it only affected small portions of the quilt. I hope you will post a picture of the quilt.

I agree with Jan and sewingladydi - it might be the backing. Sheets often have a thread count of 150 or more threads per inch in each direction - quilting fabrics have about 60-75. That makes a big difference especially for hand quilting. I often use the Hobbs 80/20 and I have never had problems with the quilting.

When I used bedsheet and hand quilting I had this problem. I use bed sheet now only if the quilt is to be machined quilted. It was really rough on my hands. However, the bed sheets really looke good quilted.