Last Monday the Gateway Quilter's Guild hosted Denise Mullenix from Fremont as our guest speaker. Her topic was quilt batting. I took copious notes, but hope the other member who said she would write a recap of the information for our next "Threads That Bind" newsletter comes through, because I know there were a few details I missed.
One issue Denise covered was shrinkage after washing. Her research shows that the Warm & Natural and Warm & White that is 80% cotton-20% polyester averages 3% shrinkage. A 100% cotton bat averages 5%.
With that news about the shrinkage, I started sweating bullets about the bat I have already cut for the quilt I am making for the wounded soldiers project the guild is sponsoring. The dimensions are to be 48" by 68" to fit a gurney or hospital bed. I already preshrunk some of the fabric I plan to use and I already cut out a section of the Pellon 100% cotton batting 50 inches wide because I know that the quilting process often takes up the width and height by about a half-inch to an inch. So, if there was going to be 5% shrinkage in that cotton batting, my width might end up only being 47-1/2 inches and my finished quilted width even less.
Denise quoted the "manufacturer's recommended" instructions for pre-washing batting that included putting it in a bathtub with hot water, gently wringing it out and then laying it flat to dry. She also mentioned that a wet king-size bed quilt batting is a lot of weight to wring out plus she personally has no place in her house big enough to lay flat something that size. (Join the club, Denise.) She uses a commercial steamer-pressing machine she purchased to shrink her batting. I can't help but wonder how much space that baby takes up.
A guild member who has been quilting for years spoke up to say that she pre-washes her quilt batting in the washing machine on gentle and then drys it on gentle and they turn out fine.
To find out if my batting would shrink and be too small for this project, I washed it. In the washing machine. Actually, I let it soak for five minutes in hot water, let it wring out, and skipped the rinse cycle. While I was at it, I also threw in the rest of the cotton batting which is enough for two more large quilts. Then I dried it all in the dryer on warm/hot for about 55 minutes. There were a few damp spots where the bat clumped together, so I loosely folded the big piece in quarters and the small piece in half and left them on top of my bed (on a clean sheet to protect them from any Archie fur that may be on my bedspread) to finish drying.
And the final results were -- drum roll, please -- no shrinkage that I could tell on either piece. I make no claims, and pre-washing batting may produce different results for others. But all I got out of the exercise was slightly softer batting and two nice little piles of the softest, whitest fluff balls that you would ever want to see from my dryer lint trap.
So, my 50 inch wide piece is back with the fabric I am collecting for the wounded warrior quilt and the rest of the fabric that I pre-washed today is sitting on my sewing table next to the gigantic tote bag I threw together the other night which is currently holding the rest of the washed quilt batting. Now that I have the batting situation worked out, it is time to get that fabric pressed, folded and ready for cutting.
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