{"id":1393,"date":"2011-12-05T07:56:12","date_gmt":"2011-12-05T12:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/?p=1393"},"modified":"2012-04-15T12:29:54","modified_gmt":"2012-04-15T17:29:54","slug":"batting-studies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/?p=1393","title":{"rendered":"Batting Studies"},"content":{"rendered":"

All quilters and many mixed media artists\u00a0know battings come in a variety of composition (the fibres they’re made from) and loft (meaning how well they push against the surface fabric to raise the relief of the quilting design) and in the case of\u00a0quilts for beds, warmth and washability can be factors in choosing an appropriate batting.\u00a0\u00a0 I’m no batting expert, but regular readers know I am very keen on samplising to see how different materials and techniques work out<\/em><\/span>.\u00a0\u00a0 I have my favourites,\u00a0but I’m not pushing any brands here- availability is highly variable according to which country or state you are in,\u00a0and what your local quilt shop carries (that is if you have one.)\u00a0\u00a0I buy good batting\u00a0when I am in Aus or the US,\u00a0 and\u00a0which of my favs I buy depends on what’s in the shop nearest my Aus\u00a0home or\u00a0my daughter’s CO home\u00a0at the time.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

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|I quilt by hand and machine, very often together in the same piece – countlessw examples in the\u00a0 galleries on this website,\u00a0even<\/em> in the first gallery of pre-1988 mixed media works – ie, before I began learning about making quilts.\u00a0 I teach\u00a0a 2-day workshop\u00a0on innovative quilting,\u00a0 Quilting With an Attitude<\/em><\/span>\u00a0\u00a0 The focus is to encourage the quilter to consider more than just the basic machined stipple patterns or the basic hand quilted running stitch; so\u00a0early in the workshop students do a variety of samplemaking using both\u00a0hand and machine stitches\u00a0on the same sample sandwiches they bring pre-made from home,(ie their own fav battings)\u00a0through which they then see how the same fibre performs in both hand and machine quilting.\u00a0 So the excellent comparative study by\u00a0Linda Steele\u00a0of Australia and posted a few days ago 1\/12 on\u00a0\u00a0http:\/\/lindasteelequilts.blogspot.com\/2011\/12\/batting-test.html<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0I found interesting as far as it goes.\u00a0\u00a0Linda apparently does not do hand quilting,. despite her interest in surface stitch, but does do\u00a0wonderful machine quilting, and it is worth taking a look at her award winning quilts on her website.\u00a0 Her remarks about each batt she used are comprehensive, but I found myself wishing the same battings had been used for hand quilted samples, too<\/em><\/span>, as it is by hand samples that even more differences in the hand can be detected.\u00a0 (eg. loft, thread drag and bearding)<\/p>\n

Back in my early novice days as a quiltmaker, I\u00a0took several workshops, joined a great local guild\u00a0(Arapahoe Couny Quilters, Denver,\u00a0then\u00a0 new and very progressive) and\u00a0a local bee. \u00a0I loved it all, and could have remained a maker of traditional quilts, but various people I met through embroidery and quilting connections, plus my own creative\u00a0embroidery background,\u00a0caused me to head out into making my own\u00a0original designs.\u00a0 While I was still learning that batting isn’t just batting, the ACQ gave out to members 9″ squares of the 10-12 different kinds of batting available in our area\u00a0including some that were nationally popular at the time.\u00a0 Back in 1988, no one did machine quilting (although Harriet Hargreaves was probably already doing so, \u00a0preparing her first book and workshops on the subject) and the needlepunched cotton and wool batts, so favoured today, were not on the market.\u00a0 So it was all hand quilting; the batts were cotton, polyester or cotton-poly blends of various lofts; and a fellow embroiderer gave a piece of silk batting ( felt nice but ultra l-o-w loft)\u00a0 to include in my study.\u00a0\u00a0 Each batting piece went between light\u00a0coloured fabrics on front and cream behind, and I hand quilted the same motif on each.\u00a0\u00a0Each was bound\u00a0and a grommet\u00a0 put in a corner; I then put them all on a binder ring to keep together.\u00a0 On the cream back of each I wrote the brand, composition, and any remarks on handling or results.\u00a0 The differences were really interesting,<\/em><\/span> as Linda pointed out; and really, now, to balance up that study I should\/could hook those samples out of my Australian cupboard and\u00a0 machine quilt something on each of them.\u00a0 If I remember next time I go back I’ll retrieve them and at least look at them.\u00a0 Some products have probably totally disappeared – certainly newer ones have emerged – eg. the much vaunted bamboo batting, which got a thumbs down from Linda – I believe that contrary to popular belief it is less ‘green’ than pure cotton batting, so who knows why it is to popular today – I haven’t come across it and am not likely to either, in Uruguay!\u00a0 Well, how wrong I was there! a few days ago, April 10,\u00a0much to my surprise, I found them while looking in a suitcase for something else:<\/p>\n

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Can’t imagine what happend to make one look very shrivelled, though …<\/p>\n

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All quilters and many mixed media artists\u00a0know battings come in a variety of composition (the fibres they’re made from) and loft (meaning how well they push against the surface fabric to raise the relief of the quilting design) and in the case of\u00a0quilts for beds, warmth and washability can be factors in choosing an appropriate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[180,181,170,166],"class_list":["post-1393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-battings-samples","tag-comparative-batting-studies","tag-hand-stitch","tag-keeping-a-record"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6uxpF-mt","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1393"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1512,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1393\/revisions\/1512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}