**The Quilter's Dream: Choosing the Perfect Batting and Backing Fabric**

As any quilter knows, batting is one of the most crucial elements in completing a quilt. The right choice can make all the difference in the finished product. In this article, we'll explore the various options available for batting, as well as the importance of choosing the perfect backing fabric.

**Batting: The Unsung Hero**

When it comes to quilting, batting is often overlooked, but it's essential to get it right. Batting serves as a layer between the quilt top and the backing fabric, providing insulation, stability, and texture to the finished product. There are several types of batting available, each with its own unique characteristics. Some popular options include cotton batting, wool batting, and polyester batting.

**Cotton Batting: The Classic Choice**

Cotton batting is a popular choice among quilters due to its softness, breathability, and ease of use. It's also relatively affordable compared to other types of batting. However, it may not be the best option for every quilt. Cotton batting can be prone to shrinkage, which can affect the overall size and shape of the finished product.

**Wool Batting: The Warmth and Texture**

Wool batting is another popular choice among quilters. It offers a unique warmth and texture that's perfect for colder climates or winter quilts. Wool batting is also breathable, making it an excellent option for quilts that need to provide insulation without trapping heat. However, it can be more expensive than cotton batting and may require special care when washing.

**Polyester Batting: The Modern Option**

Polyester batting is a modern alternative to traditional batting materials. It's lightweight, easy to care for, and offers excellent durability. Polyester batting is also a great option for quilts that need to withstand heavy use or exposure to sunlight. However, it can be less breathable than other options and may not provide the same level of texture and warmth.

**The Quilter's Dream Batting**

For quilters looking for a high-quality batting that offers the best of both worlds, The Quilter's Dream is an excellent option. This premium batting is made from a blend of cotton and polyester fibers, offering a soft, breathable, and durable fabric that's perfect for quilts of all types. It's also relatively affordable compared to other high-end batting options.

**Backing Fabric: Completing the Quilt**

Once the batting has been chosen, it's time to select the backing fabric. The backing fabric serves as the foundation of the quilt, providing a sturdy base for the quilt top and batting layers. The right choice of backing fabric can make all the difference in the finished product.

**The Importance of Choosing the Right Backing Fabric**

When choosing the right backing fabric, it's essential to consider several factors, including the size of the quilt, the type of quilting technique used, and the desired finish. A larger backing fabric is usually recommended for machine quilting or hand quilting, as it provides a stable surface for stitching.

**Quilting Cotton Fabric: The Standard Choice**

Quilting cotton fabric is a popular choice among quilters due to its durability, versatility, and ease of use. It's also relatively affordable compared to other types of backing fabrics. However, it may not be the best option for every quilt.

**108-Inch Wide Backing Fabric: A Game-Changer**

For quilters looking for an easy and efficient way to complete their quilts, 108-inch wide backing fabric is a game-changer. This premium fabric offers several advantages over traditional backing fabrics, including ease of use, reduced waste, and increased durability.

**Piecing the Binding: Adding the Finishing Touches**

Once the batting and backing fabric have been chosen, it's time to add the final touches to the quilt – the binding. The binding serves as a decorative edge that hides the raw edges of the quilt top, batting, and backing fabric. It's also an excellent opportunity for quilters to showcase their favorite fabrics.

**Piecing the Binding: Tips and Tricks**

When piecing the binding, it's essential to consider several factors, including the type of fabric used, the size of the binding strips, and the desired finish. A common technique among quilters is to use scraps from previous projects or leftover fabric to create a cohesive look.

**Hand Sewing the Binding: The Art of Finishing**

For quilters who prefer a more traditional approach, hand sewing the binding offers a beautiful and intricate way to complete the quilt. This technique requires patience, skill, and attention to detail, but the results are well worth the effort.

**Measuring and Cutting the Binding Strips**

To ensure a professional finish, it's essential to measure and cut the binding strips accurately. Quilters can use a variety of methods, including using a ruler or measuring wheel, to achieve precise measurements.

**Sewing the Binding: Tips and Tricks**

When sewing the binding, quilters should consider several factors, including the type of fabric used, the size of the binding strips, and the desired finish. A common technique among quilters is to use a 1/4-inch seam allowance to ensure a secure and stable binding.

**The Finished Product: A Masterpiece**

With all the elements in place, the finished product is finally complete – a beautiful, intricate masterpiece that showcases the quilter's skill and creativity. Whether it's a simple baby quilt or an elaborate wall hanging, every detail has been carefully considered to create a stunning work of art.

In conclusion, choosing the right batting and backing fabric is crucial for creating a high-quality quilt. With so many options available, quilters can experiment with different materials to find the perfect combination for their next project. By following these tips and tricks, quilters can ensure a professional finish that showcases their skill and creativity.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey it's Vanessa the crafty Gemini and I'm back with another video in my samosa video quilt along series we finished the quilt top so in this video we're talking all about batting all right so if you're new quilter let's briefly recap what makes a quilt I have some little quilts here that'll be easy for me to hold up the front whatever patchwork design you make that's called the quilt top which is what we have here and where we are in the samosa quilt along series at this step the whole front has been put together into one big sheets that's our quilt top on the back you're gonna have it could be a whole nother design it could just be a solid piece of really large fabric it can be a couple different chunks of fabric piece together but basically you end up with another sheet of fabric on the back and that we call our quilt backing then we have something in the middle that gives it some nice drape a little bit more warmth it's kind of the fluffy feel that you feel inside of a quilt and that is made up of our quilt batting so I have my personal favorite quilt batting right here for you we carry this in our online shop so if you've never tried it because it can be a little bit tricky to get your hands on since this company is family-owned and it's all in the United States it's made in the US you'll usually only find this kind of batting at independant quilt shops so we carry this in our online shop if you want to try it is called quilters dream and let me talk a little bit about the makeup as far as the fiber content of a lot of different batting's on the market you can find batting that's a hundred percent cotton or a hundred percent polyester oftentimes there's also a blend typically an 80% cotton 20% polyester but there are also batting's that are made out of things like bamboo hem wool you can even find batting that's made from post consumer recycled bottles plastic bottles so there's a ton of different batting's out there and I would recommend that you try some different ones out if you haven't yet tried a few different types and brands but this is personally my favorite that I use for work type of quilt projects that I need to make and also on my own personal quilts that I make to gift people in my family and my loved ones so the batting that I like to use is the quilt dream and they also have different fiber content blends in there batting's but the one that I like to use and we carry it in our online shop is there a hundred percent pure cotton batting it's undyed it's the natural color of the cotton and there are two different weights to this that I'm going to recommend to you one is select which is kind of the medium weight loftiness to the batting and my absolute favorite one is the request this is their thinnest weight loftiness right that's how thick the body is it's again a hundred percent cotton it's all USA grown cotton and this has no scrim no glue no binders so there's some other batting's out there that oftentimes you will use them either for free motion quilting or on a long arm quilting machine and they'll give you problems depending on what side you place the batting and they just happen to have like extra stuff in there that it's not just the cotton that we're using in our quilts I prefer to stay away from those kinds of batting's so this is a really good high quality cotton batting now let me show you something these are both throw size which measures 60 inches by 60 inches so if I put them side-by-side I'm hoping you can see it there this one is significantly thinner than this one here this is select so the medium weight it's still a very nice light weight batting but I live in Florida and a lot of times I get questions from beginners looking to find out you know what type of batting do you use because I know you live in Florida so I want to make one for my grandkids or for my daughter who lives in a warmer climate and maybe they typically use a really lofty cotton or cotton in wool batting and they want to find something lighter that you can still use in warmer climates that is where this requests sickness the thinnest version of the quilters dream cotton comes in this stuff is amazing I have used the polyester one in the past years and years ago because it is more affordable but the hundred percent cotton request is amazing and I will see if you can kind of show you because these quilts have it in there so this is my any which way it's a little wall hanging quilts but can you see how drapey this is it's not stiff at all oftentimes you think that you want something stiff if you're making a wall hanging I want a really lightweight thin quilt that's gonna just drape and hang off the wall I'm gonna fold this up for you because this I hand quilted it and I was able to put this little quilt I mean in a little bag that was almost nothing and take it with me as I traveled when I was doing the hand quilting on it and also hand sewing on the binding look how little there's no extra puffiness to this batting it just has an amazing amazing drape to it again I said it's all 100% cotton there's nothing else in it and this is absolutely my favorite now here I have a quote that I use with the other one the hundred percent cotton same same manufacturers same everything except it's a little bit thicker than the request level this is the Select now this quilt I made using half of a stack of the ten inch squares which my 10 inch slice a ruler so I did make this when using the same ruler that we use to make the samosa quilt so if you have a 10 inch slicer because you're working on the samosa quilt along with us go ahead and check out the link that I've included for you below there's a page with all the video tutorials on how you can use the 10 inch slicer to make different type of quilt blocks and this is just another example of those that you can choose from there so let me see if I can give it a good flip to see if you can see how drapey it is for little kids even if you're making a quilt for a larger bed a full-sized bed you don't really want this super heavy heavy well at least we don't in Florida what a super heavy heavy quilt that they're not going to be able to move under these are quilts with this batting that you can take with you in the car on an airplane pack it in a little kid's bag you know weekender bags for toddlers and things like that you can just fold this up into practically nothing and I'm gonna share with you one of my main main reasons of why I recommend this bag and that is because it's lighter and it has nothing in it no fillers no scrim and nothing like that you're not fighting with the batting as you're trying to machine quilted especially those of you that are wanting to quilt quilts on a sit down sewing machine or if you're hand quilting it there's no scream there's no extra adhesive there's nothing in there that's gonna hinder you from doing your hand quilting stitches so that's another reason you can see these both of these little quilts were hand quilted okay and I love to go through them with my 12 weight cotton thread for hand quilting there's no weight there's almost no bulk in there that's gonna cause me to either be forcing too much force on my fingers as I'm trying to push the needle and thread through there right and the stitches just look beautiful on it great stitch definition and so this is another one of those reasons so again if you're looking for like mid weight the select one you can see this is a crib size quilt and look how it just folds up you can put this in any little diaper bag just slide it in there you're someone who doesn't really want to have synthetics in their projects this is a great great batting to go with I'll include a link below to my online shop because we do carry it in both weights the request which is the thinnest select which is that medium weight and then in a ton of different sizes okay now quilters dream does not recommend that you pre wash this batting some other manufacturers may require that the shrinkage on this cotton batting is so minimal it's really not even noticeable it's about one to three percent shrinkage so if you're someone who likes to make a quilt and then you wash it before you gift it to someone and you get that nice kind of crinkled very loved on quilt you know what I'm talking about when you get the wrinkly wrinkly Crill that just feels so soft and fluffy that's about all you're gonna get with the one to three percent shrinkage so I personally love the way that that looks after I wash the batting in the finished quilt and it's not going to really affect your quilt to the point where a ton of it is shrinking up like you might find with some other products on the market now that the batting is out of the way remember that there's still one more layer left to our quilt sandwich and that is going to be the backing fabric that layer fabric that goes on the back side of the quilt and similar to the batting that piece too needs to be larger than your quilt top now a lot of it is going to depend on how you plan to finish your quilt so if you're hand quilting it yourself you might need a different size backing fabric then if you're sending it off to a long armor to be quilted so keep that in mind if you are sending it off to a long armor to finish the quilt for you make sure that you inquire about the specifics that they require to load the quilt backing and even quilt tops to their specific machine setup because those usually go up on take-up rollers and you need to have a lot more in the length than you're doing the width typically to get that backing loaded onto the frame so they can proceed with long arm quilting it so how much bigger the backing fabric needs to be is gonna depend a lot on how you plan to finish the quilt I have definitely gotten away with barely an inch or two extra on top and bottom if I'm gonna be machine quilting it myself or hand quilting it myself so keep those things in mind as well when you're deciding what fabric you want to use for your backing or if you're out there purchasing yardage as well and then once you choose that backing fabric you'll also have to do some math to figure out how you need to cut the fabric or how you need to cut and piece it together to end up with a panel that's large enough to be used as backing for that specific quilt top if you choose your typical quilting cotton for the backing fabric that comes at a pretty standard 40 to 45 inch width then you typically will have to piece two large chunks together but there's also another super handy option that a lot of us are now using these days to finish off our quilts with the quilt backing and that is quilting cotton fabric that comes at 108 inches wide it's amazing it's super handy and if you buy two yards of that you're gonna have enough backing for a couple of quilts and so if that's something that you choose make sure that you ask at your local quilt shop or you do some research so you can see what options at the 108 inch wide back are available to you so we've talked a little bit about batting about your backing fabric options and then the last step that you're going to use to finish off your quilt is going to be the quilt binding this is the finished edge of your quilt that's going to encase and hide all the raw edges of those three layers that we've already mentioned the quilt top the batting and the quilt backing the binding hides all of that and gives it a nice kind of framed out edge on the exterior of the quilts both on the front and back for a nice clean finish now the binding is gonna be totally up to you you'll probably want to use a quilting cotton fabric as well but I am a big fan of piecing my quilt binding so scraps that you may have left over from that current quilt top that you're working on that way you'll know the fabrics will match if you have half-yard chunks or 3/4 yards chunks of other fabric on in your stash already that will match you can cut those up into strips as well now if maybe you're further along in this quilt along process then I am going with the videos know that I have multiple video tutorials already on my youtube channel sharing with you some different ways on how you can finish your quilt hand tying your quilt hand quilting your quilt sit-down machine free motion quilting your quilts I have video series on all of these and then also on how to long arm quilt your quilt I also have several tutorials showing you how to measure and figure out how much binding you'll need how many binding strips to cut out how to cut sew and peace the binding on and even how to hand sew the binding to the back so if you're already looking to maybe finish off another quilt that you're working on I'll include links below on where you can find all those video tutorials another quick and easy way to do the search is right here on YouTube just type in crafty Gemini and then a couple of keywords for whatever it is that you're looking for so an example would be crafty Gemini free motion quilting and all my seven videos that I currently have on free motion quilting will pop right up for you crafty Gemini quilt binding and those videos will pop right up for you so that's a quick and easy way for you to do a search to find if there's instructional videos that I've done on a specific topic you're looking to learn alright and that is it for this video I hope that you enjoyed it and that you learned a little bit more about batting and backing and that you'll even give the quilters dream batting that I love and highly recommend a try I've included the link for you below on where you can get it we carry it in our online shop in several different sizes and currently in those two different loft sizes that I mentioned the select which is that medium one and the request which is that thinner loft that I absolutely love so use the link check it out and you can make that purchase from us if you enjoyed this video tutorial and if you're learning something from my videos leave me a comment below and remember to give the video a thumbs up I definitely appreciate all your support feel free to share it with your quilty friends and don't forget to click the subscribe button most of all so you make sure you don't miss out on any of my future videos thanks again for watching and I will see you in the next video bye youhey it's Vanessa the crafty Gemini and I'm back with another video in my samosa video quilt along series we finished the quilt top so in this video we're talking all about batting all right so if you're new quilter let's briefly recap what makes a quilt I have some little quilts here that'll be easy for me to hold up the front whatever patchwork design you make that's called the quilt top which is what we have here and where we are in the samosa quilt along series at this step the whole front has been put together into one big sheets that's our quilt top on the back you're gonna have it could be a whole nother design it could just be a solid piece of really large fabric it can be a couple different chunks of fabric piece together but basically you end up with another sheet of fabric on the back and that we call our quilt backing then we have something in the middle that gives it some nice drape a little bit more warmth it's kind of the fluffy feel that you feel inside of a quilt and that is made up of our quilt batting so I have my personal favorite quilt batting right here for you we carry this in our online shop so if you've never tried it because it can be a little bit tricky to get your hands on since this company is family-owned and it's all in the United States it's made in the US you'll usually only find this kind of batting at independant quilt shops so we carry this in our online shop if you want to try it is called quilters dream and let me talk a little bit about the makeup as far as the fiber content of a lot of different batting's on the market you can find batting that's a hundred percent cotton or a hundred percent polyester oftentimes there's also a blend typically an 80% cotton 20% polyester but there are also batting's that are made out of things like bamboo hem wool you can even find batting that's made from post consumer recycled bottles plastic bottles so there's a ton of different batting's out there and I would recommend that you try some different ones out if you haven't yet tried a few different types and brands but this is personally my favorite that I use for work type of quilt projects that I need to make and also on my own personal quilts that I make to gift people in my family and my loved ones so the batting that I like to use is the quilt dream and they also have different fiber content blends in there batting's but the one that I like to use and we carry it in our online shop is there a hundred percent pure cotton batting it's undyed it's the natural color of the cotton and there are two different weights to this that I'm going to recommend to you one is select which is kind of the medium weight loftiness to the batting and my absolute favorite one is the request this is their thinnest weight loftiness right that's how thick the body is it's again a hundred percent cotton it's all USA grown cotton and this has no scrim no glue no binders so there's some other batting's out there that oftentimes you will use them either for free motion quilting or on a long arm quilting machine and they'll give you problems depending on what side you place the batting and they just happen to have like extra stuff in there that it's not just the cotton that we're using in our quilts I prefer to stay away from those kinds of batting's so this is a really good high quality cotton batting now let me show you something these are both throw size which measures 60 inches by 60 inches so if I put them side-by-side I'm hoping you can see it there this one is significantly thinner than this one here this is select so the medium weight it's still a very nice light weight batting but I live in Florida and a lot of times I get questions from beginners looking to find out you know what type of batting do you use because I know you live in Florida so I want to make one for my grandkids or for my daughter who lives in a warmer climate and maybe they typically use a really lofty cotton or cotton in wool batting and they want to find something lighter that you can still use in warmer climates that is where this requests sickness the thinnest version of the quilters dream cotton comes in this stuff is amazing I have used the polyester one in the past years and years ago because it is more affordable but the hundred percent cotton request is amazing and I will see if you can kind of show you because these quilts have it in there so this is my any which way it's a little wall hanging quilts but can you see how drapey this is it's not stiff at all oftentimes you think that you want something stiff if you're making a wall hanging I want a really lightweight thin quilt that's gonna just drape and hang off the wall I'm gonna fold this up for you because this I hand quilted it and I was able to put this little quilt I mean in a little bag that was almost nothing and take it with me as I traveled when I was doing the hand quilting on it and also hand sewing on the binding look how little there's no extra puffiness to this batting it just has an amazing amazing drape to it again I said it's all 100% cotton there's nothing else in it and this is absolutely my favorite now here I have a quote that I use with the other one the hundred percent cotton same same manufacturers same everything except it's a little bit thicker than the request level this is the Select now this quilt I made using half of a stack of the ten inch squares which my 10 inch slice a ruler so I did make this when using the same ruler that we use to make the samosa quilt so if you have a 10 inch slicer because you're working on the samosa quilt along with us go ahead and check out the link that I've included for you below there's a page with all the video tutorials on how you can use the 10 inch slicer to make different type of quilt blocks and this is just another example of those that you can choose from there so let me see if I can give it a good flip to see if you can see how drapey it is for little kids even if you're making a quilt for a larger bed a full-sized bed you don't really want this super heavy heavy well at least we don't in Florida what a super heavy heavy quilt that they're not going to be able to move under these are quilts with this batting that you can take with you in the car on an airplane pack it in a little kid's bag you know weekender bags for toddlers and things like that you can just fold this up into practically nothing and I'm gonna share with you one of my main main reasons of why I recommend this bag and that is because it's lighter and it has nothing in it no fillers no scrim and nothing like that you're not fighting with the batting as you're trying to machine quilted especially those of you that are wanting to quilt quilts on a sit down sewing machine or if you're hand quilting it there's no scream there's no extra adhesive there's nothing in there that's gonna hinder you from doing your hand quilting stitches so that's another reason you can see these both of these little quilts were hand quilted okay and I love to go through them with my 12 weight cotton thread for hand quilting there's no weight there's almost no bulk in there that's gonna cause me to either be forcing too much force on my fingers as I'm trying to push the needle and thread through there right and the stitches just look beautiful on it great stitch definition and so this is another one of those reasons so again if you're looking for like mid weight the select one you can see this is a crib size quilt and look how it just folds up you can put this in any little diaper bag just slide it in there you're someone who doesn't really want to have synthetics in their projects this is a great great batting to go with I'll include a link below to my online shop because we do carry it in both weights the request which is the thinnest select which is that medium weight and then in a ton of different sizes okay now quilters dream does not recommend that you pre wash this batting some other manufacturers may require that the shrinkage on this cotton batting is so minimal it's really not even noticeable it's about one to three percent shrinkage so if you're someone who likes to make a quilt and then you wash it before you gift it to someone and you get that nice kind of crinkled very loved on quilt you know what I'm talking about when you get the wrinkly wrinkly Crill that just feels so soft and fluffy that's about all you're gonna get with the one to three percent shrinkage so I personally love the way that that looks after I wash the batting in the finished quilt and it's not going to really affect your quilt to the point where a ton of it is shrinking up like you might find with some other products on the market now that the batting is out of the way remember that there's still one more layer left to our quilt sandwich and that is going to be the backing fabric that layer fabric that goes on the back side of the quilt and similar to the batting that piece too needs to be larger than your quilt top now a lot of it is going to depend on how you plan to finish your quilt so if you're hand quilting it yourself you might need a different size backing fabric then if you're sending it off to a long armor to be quilted so keep that in mind if you are sending it off to a long armor to finish the quilt for you make sure that you inquire about the specifics that they require to load the quilt backing and even quilt tops to their specific machine setup because those usually go up on take-up rollers and you need to have a lot more in the length than you're doing the width typically to get that backing loaded onto the frame so they can proceed with long arm quilting it so how much bigger the backing fabric needs to be is gonna depend a lot on how you plan to finish the quilt I have definitely gotten away with barely an inch or two extra on top and bottom if I'm gonna be machine quilting it myself or hand quilting it myself so keep those things in mind as well when you're deciding what fabric you want to use for your backing or if you're out there purchasing yardage as well and then once you choose that backing fabric you'll also have to do some math to figure out how you need to cut the fabric or how you need to cut and piece it together to end up with a panel that's large enough to be used as backing for that specific quilt top if you choose your typical quilting cotton for the backing fabric that comes at a pretty standard 40 to 45 inch width then you typically will have to piece two large chunks together but there's also another super handy option that a lot of us are now using these days to finish off our quilts with the quilt backing and that is quilting cotton fabric that comes at 108 inches wide it's amazing it's super handy and if you buy two yards of that you're gonna have enough backing for a couple of quilts and so if that's something that you choose make sure that you ask at your local quilt shop or you do some research so you can see what options at the 108 inch wide back are available to you so we've talked a little bit about batting about your backing fabric options and then the last step that you're going to use to finish off your quilt is going to be the quilt binding this is the finished edge of your quilt that's going to encase and hide all the raw edges of those three layers that we've already mentioned the quilt top the batting and the quilt backing the binding hides all of that and gives it a nice kind of framed out edge on the exterior of the quilts both on the front and back for a nice clean finish now the binding is gonna be totally up to you you'll probably want to use a quilting cotton fabric as well but I am a big fan of piecing my quilt binding so scraps that you may have left over from that current quilt top that you're working on that way you'll know the fabrics will match if you have half-yard chunks or 3/4 yards chunks of other fabric on in your stash already that will match you can cut those up into strips as well now if maybe you're further along in this quilt along process then I am going with the videos know that I have multiple video tutorials already on my youtube channel sharing with you some different ways on how you can finish your quilt hand tying your quilt hand quilting your quilt sit-down machine free motion quilting your quilts I have video series on all of these and then also on how to long arm quilt your quilt I also have several tutorials showing you how to measure and figure out how much binding you'll need how many binding strips to cut out how to cut sew and peace the binding on and even how to hand sew the binding to the back so if you're already looking to maybe finish off another quilt that you're working on I'll include links below on where you can find all those video tutorials another quick and easy way to do the search is right here on YouTube just type in crafty Gemini and then a couple of keywords for whatever it is that you're looking for so an example would be crafty Gemini free motion quilting and all my seven videos that I currently have on free motion quilting will pop right up for you crafty Gemini quilt binding and those videos will pop right up for you so that's a quick and easy way for you to do a search to find if there's instructional videos that I've done on a specific topic you're looking to learn alright and that is it for this video I hope that you enjoyed it and that you learned a little bit more about batting and backing and that you'll even give the quilters dream batting that I love and highly recommend a try I've included the link for you below on where you can get it we carry it in our online shop in several different sizes and currently in those two different loft sizes that I mentioned the select which is that medium one and the request which is that thinner loft that I absolutely love so use the link check it out and you can make that purchase from us if you enjoyed this video tutorial and if you're learning something from my videos leave me a comment below and remember to give the video a thumbs up I definitely appreciate all your support feel free to share it with your quilty friends and don't forget to click the subscribe button most of all so you make sure you don't miss out on any of my future videos thanks again for watching and I will see you in the next video bye you\n"