Different Types of Quilt Batting

There are many different types of quilt battings available, either at your local craft store or even available online. And the type of batting you choose for your quilts can depend on what type of quilt you're making, an art quilt versus a bed quilt, as well as the climate you're going to be using that quilt in, whether it's going to be really cold or really warm, and how you want your overall quilt to look, whether you want it to be sort of stiff and hold its shape, or you want it to drape well on the bed. So, a couple of the most common types of batting that you find at your local craft store, or even at some of the big box stores, is generally a polyester or polyester blend batting. So that is what this is here. Here's just a small piece that I have left from another project that I did. Polyester is very common because it is one of the least expensive types of batting, it is very easy to find, and it can be used in anything from an art quilt or a craft size project, all the way up to a bed quilt. Some of the pros of using a polyester batting, again, easy to find inexpensive, however, it is not breathable at all. So if you are someone who maybe sleeps and you're always usually warm when you're sleeping, if you are underneath a quilt that is quilted with a polyester batting, you're probably gonna find that you are sweating a lot in the middle of the night and it's not going to allow any heat to escape or any air to breathe through. So, there are some benefits to polyester batting, but if that's what you're looking for, is the breathability of your quilt, polyester is not something that you wanna pick. Polyester batting is however something I absolutely always have on hand in my sewing room because I use it for things outside of quilting as well. This is just a little craft size that you can buy of this polyester batting. And I picked this one just so you can sort of see this fun little picture down in the bottom. They used it to make a little wig. So this kind of batting can be used for everything from quilts to just minor little craft projects and sort of everything in between. So even if you don't do a whole lot of quilting with polyester batting, it's always a good thing to have on hand. Also, if you're someone who likes to practice with little stitch outs or practice your quilting, free motion quilting, a new quilting design, having just some inexpensive polyester batting on hand can be a perfect thing to practice with. Another common type of quilt batting, one that can be found at some crafts and fabric stores as well is cotton batting. Cotton batting is one that comes in a lot of different thicknesses, so you can get it anywhere from really thin, known as low loft, to really thick, which is a higher loft. This just happens to be a smaller size. This is a crib size and you can see, if I unfold this here, this is a fairly thin, lower loft, cotton batting. This is something that has a little bit of breathability to it, definitely more than polyester, not as much as some of the other battings we're going to talk about, but a good one for warmth. It's also very soft and very comfortable and it drapes fairly well. So if you have a lower loft cotton batting in a quilt that's not heavily quilted, it will drape nice over the edge of the bed and look very nice. Aside from cotton, we have some other options here. This is silk batting, set this aside. Silk batting is one of the most breathable types of batting that you'll be able to find. It is, however, one of the more expensive types of batting that you're going to find and one that isn't as readily available in fabric stores. So this is actually one that I had to order online but again, it's very, very soft, very breathable, a little bit thicker than cotton batting. So this one happens to be maybe more of a low to medium loft and it can be a little bit stiffer, so it doesn't quite drape as nice as some of the other battings. But again, if you want to make a nice breathable quilt or a nice lightweight quilt, maybe a summertime bed quilt, silk batting is something that you want to pick. Some other options here. This next one is wool batting. And if you can't pick out batting types based off of just glancing at it and knowing what it looks like, you will absolutely be able to tell what wool batting is just by feeling it, because if you've ever worn a scratchy wool sweater, that's kinda what this batting feels like. So it is fairly breathable, not as breathable as silk, but much better than polyester. However, it is very stiff. So this is a type of batting where if you're making a project or making a quilt and you want it to hold its shape, you want to pick a batting such as this wool batting here. One more batting that I want to talk about, which is one of my favorite battings to actually to feel. It is the softest, nicest, most luxurious feeling batting, and this is bamboo batting. So it is slightly less expensive than something like a silk batting. And in terms of breathability, is right up there with silk as well. It is something that is really soft, drapes really well, has a very, again, soft feel to it, so it's more of a low to medium loft, though I believe you can get this in different thicknesses, and so it gives a nice overall finish to your quilt. So this one, if you can find it either in a store or you can find it online and it's in your budget for the quilting project that you're using, I highly recommend a bamboo batting. So again, we have bamboo, wool, silk, cotton, polyester, all of these are good types of batting to use in your quilt, depending on how you want your quilt to look, how breathable you want it to be and how warm you want it to be, and just how you want your overall quilt to look. So if you have access to very small amounts of batting, you can buy a craft size or even crib size, get a little sample of each of these battings and try them out, quilt on them, see what they look like once they've been quilted, and get a feel for what your favorite type of batting is and what you want to use on your next quilt project.