Theresa

I've made quite a few of these quilts. You are on the right track about the thickness and the bulk at the seams. It will be heavy enough as a summer quilt without the batting. With that said, a very lightweight batting gives it the feel of a quilt and we all love that!

ILoveToQuilt

I've done string quilts both ways - with and without batting. With batting and cotton backing, extra warm and heavy. Without batting - I used a heavy weight fleece as a backing and quilted as usual. You could feel the seams a bit with the fleece, but not as much as if I'd used nothing except a quilting cotton backing. Also with the fleece backing, quilt was not as heavy in weight.

Just my 2 cents....

Pudge

Thanks for all your responses. I'm going to use flannel as a batting. And then I'm going to try the fleece approach. And I'm starting out with wheelchair size charity quilts before I go "big".

QuiltE

Great way to do some trial runs .... and see what is going to work for your bigger quilt!!

As a side note ... if doing for charity, check with the recipient organization as to any specs.
Never nice to later find out that your efforts are appreciated, but rejected
because they do not meet their requirements.

wabekem

I am just finishing up a "sorta" string quilt of flannel and didn't use any batting. I started with string in the middle and next couple but my ends were larger. I used one flannel block for the base and it's the backing too. Then I used a variation of QAYG to connect it. It was the first of this that I've tried but was excited to use up my flannel scraps. As mentioned by someone, it does have some bulk in the seams but I'm thinking batting would have just added more bulk in my situation.

Pennyhal

I've never done a summer quilt using muslin as a base. However, the stretchiness of the strings probably require some sort of stablizer. You might try heavily starching the strings' fabrics so that you don't need the muslin. This would probably solve the bulk issue and make the qulit lighter, and the quilting would hold the layers together. The summer quilts I've made just have no stabilizer in the blocks and a fabric backing. I was surprised at how warm it was.

aashley333

I used a minky fabric to back a t shirt quilt and didn't use batting. Will do that again.

crzypatcher

I use fleece for the backing. It substitutes for batting and backing together.

KalamaQuilts

overall it would also depend on the width of your strings and size of the blocks. 2.5" strings on a 12" block will give a much different weight than using string strings my strings are 3/4-1-1/4" wide and 6" would be the largest block I'd make. Total weight is one of the reasons I don't use any leave in base but use papers. And I make sure there are seldom any seams coming into corners.

that said I've made a couple of double sided string quilts with no batt and been very happy with them.

tranum

I’ve been making I Spy quilts and using fleece as a back (no batting). I’ve not been quilting very long on my DSM but I used like a thousand safety pins and was happy with my results. Or as someone advised, 2 layers of pre washed flannel would be nice but you’ll be happier with something inside.