World Wide Quilting Page

Question of the Week

Question for the week of March 20, 2000:

Our question this week comes from Dennis Decker

I received a carded wool batting as a gift and want to hand quilt it - any suggestions for thread, needles, etc.? Do I need to put a netting or something on either side of the batt to prevent bearding? Will I like this batting as much as cotton?

Lucille :
I don't have any wool batting experiences to share; I'm just wondering how the Muslim felt about Madeleine making him or her into a pillow case! ;-)

Madeleine :
I made a tied comforter with a wool batting. I first covered the bat with muslim and then put it in the quilt. Basically I made a muslim pillow casee the same size as the quilt batting and stuffed the wool batting into it.

Lynne, I would recommend using a commercial woolen mill to process your fleeces into batting if you were planning to quilt it. A drum carder makes such small batts.

Lynne :
I've been wondering much the same. I used to do a lot of Spinning (or should I say I collected alot of fleeces) and as my interest has now turned to quilting I wondered if I could use some of my fleeces as wadding. I thought of drum carding to make batts and then overlaying them and felting them. I've not tried it and I don't know if it's worth the effort. I'll read this page later in the week.

Caroline :
I started a crazy quilt 20 years ago and as it sat there, the cats would play all over it. The polyester batting was torn out in places along the sides. Being a spinner, I carded some wool ( this in 1994) and used it as a batt to fill in the edges. My husband, when I had finished the quilt, took it to the wash and had it cleaned.
The wool shrunk, and now as well as using it daily on the bed, I use the quilt to show students and others what not to do with wool batts.

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