I'm making a baby quilt with a lot of pastels in the top, along with solid sashing that's very light colored. The instructions from the W&N site says the side with the black dots should go against the quilt top but I'm hesitant because of the possibility of show-through. I don't even know if I've ever paid attention to which is the right and wrong side but have you used it with the smooth side toward the quilt top? I'm going to machine quilt it with straight line quilting.

This is the only batting I have on hand, and I don't want to buy new batting. So I need to use this, one way or the other.

My W&N has black dots? I'll have to look at my batting.

I have a roll of W&N white - it's from about 20+ years ago - but it does not have black dots.

I also have a roll of W&N "natural" - also from about 20+ years ago - which does contain brown flecks of the cotton plant. When I washed it before using it, it turned the water very yellow.

Both rolls have a scrim side made of polyester - that is almost like a light weight pellon - that the cotton fibers are needled into - and that is somewhat smoother than the "pure cotton" side.

https://warmcompany.com/frequently-asked-questions

The company does suggest having the scrim (smoother side) face the backing - but that the batting does not have really have a "right" or "wrong" side.

I use W&N all the time I have not seen any black dots on what I have purchased, but that does not help you. Do you have enough bat that you could cut them off? Also since your fabric is so light I think you may want to wash it first. It will shrink a bit but you will also be washing out some of the yellowing that may dull your quilt in time.

Using W&N with the "bumpy side up" (the side that may have the little dark bits of the cotton plant aka "black dots") is more important when quilting on a LA than on a domestic. The larger needle size can cause pokies of batting to appear on the surface of the quilt when loaded the wrong way. The smaller size of a domestic sewing machine needle does not normally cause this problem.

I've made lots of quilts with W/N and never paid attention to which side was put down, didn't seem to make a difference. All done on my dsm. Of course I never entered one in a "show".

I agree with Bear and Feline. You probably want to avoid the dreaded "pokies".

Could you put a layer of white muslin between the batting and the top?

Thank you all. The black dots are the little bits of plants. They are all over the entire thing so there's no cutting them off, although I could maybe pick some off. I will do that if they're especially big but I prefer not to. lol. Since I'm not using a longarm I'll just stick with my plan of putting the dots toward the backing. I don't want to buy muslin to put in between but I may put it in a pillowcase and wash/dry it first. Good idea.

Also, I have a lot of warm & natural that I bought on sale but after it's gone I think I'll stick with warm & white.

I've used it a lot, too and didn't know there was a right side and wrong side. I just learned which side was supposed to be up this week.

(I'm thinking about quilting a top in sections again. The last time, I left the scrim side up and when I tried to join the sections with iron on tape, the scrim stuck to the iron. So, this week, I checked out how to tell which side is the scrim side. I've never had a problem with bearding when quilting on my domestic sewing machine.)

bkay