Wadding/batting comparison
What is your favourite wadding/batting?
I happened to use cotton wadding from the start thanks to my friend and never looked for other ones. From what I hearing I know wool is nice but right now I only stock and use cotton one.
I stock, Warm and Natural(W&N), Warm and White(W&W), Warm and Plush(W&P) and Bosal Katahdin in my shop. W&N has been my main wadding since I started quilting but I am trying few other options.
They are all natural colours except W&W which is made of bleached cotton. Bosal and W&P are bit whiter than W&N and seems to have less black bits. All are made of organic cotton, needle punched without any glue and made in US. W&W and W&N have scrim to keep cotton fiber together. Bosal is the thinnest and W&P has 50% more cotton fiber than W&N.
Do they look different effect on quilting? Yes and I made samples. I used same fabric for the tops and same calico for the backs. Thread are same Aurifil 50wt. And same quilt design. I didn’t include W&W because that is basically same as W&N. It’s a best option for whiter quilts since won’t affect the colour.
Not sure photos here can show difference but here you go.
Bosal is the thinnest one and a lot of other cotton waddings are this thickness. It’s soft because it hasn’t got scrim. Because it’s thin it won’t fill quilt bumps nicely and creates wrinkles if you do dense quilting but quilt bumps are there. It’s light and easy to move for quilting large quilts and a bit cheaper too.
Warm and Natural/White is middle thickness here. Bit more plumpness. The quilts gets a bit stiff if you dense quilt because of the scrim. Some people find hard to use for hand quilting which I have very limited experience and can’t comment on. I use this wadding for wall hanging because I can get more visible bumps and feels more solid.
Since Warm and Plush is the thickest here it creates better plumps. Less wrinkles and nicer shadow. Since there is no scrim it won’t stiffen that much. However it is heavy and denser. I am not sure I want to use for bed quilts.
Can you see the back of W&N in the middle is a bit flatter than others?
