If you want to make the perfect quilt, you must plan carefully to choose the best batting for baby quilt.
Batting is the name of a fabric sheet, which is often placed between two layers of fabric. Batting makes the baby quilt warmer, loftier, thicker, and more textured.
This post will show you the most common material and batting types for your baby quilt.
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Different Techniques For Making Baby Batting
Fibers are the material for making battings, and they have to go through processes to turn into sheets for quilting. When producing battings, manufacturers need to make sure that fibers must stick tightly together. Thanks to that, customers can use it for a long time without having to deal with clumping or torn quilts.
Now, we will show you some of the most popular methods for keeping fibers stable together.
Bonded
Manufacturers bond the fibers together by using resin or thermal.
Resin bonding: We will use several materials – cotton, polyester, and wool; then apply the resin to both sides of the batting. Finally, we will dry products. With this thorough process, batting has better resistance in bearding.
Thermal bonding: First, we need to melt a fiber at a low temperature and mix it with typical polyester to fix everything together. As a result, batting can’t quickly break down like the resin method when dry cleaning or washing.
Needle-punching
Thousands of tiny needles will mechanically punch into the fibers from both sides of the batting to press them together. Thanks to the strong traction of heavy-duty quilting machines, this method can be used for making strong and dense yet low-loft batting.
On the other hand, because of the high density of the products, it is quite impossible for you to make batting via hand quilting.
FYI – “Loft” status shows how thin or thick the batting is. “Low-loft” equals “thin,” and “high-loft” equals “thick.”
Scrim
This method is similar to the needle-punching technique. However, there is one more step, where the manufacturers will put a thin stabilizer layer into the batting. As a result, the products are sturdier and have a higher loft.
With our key information about batting, now you can be sure about the material for the batting and the method for making your baby quilts.
What Is The Best Batting For Baby Quilt?
Let’s figure out some differences among these most common materials for producing fibers of batting. They are polyester, cotton, blends, and bamboo.
Polyester Quilt Batting
Polyester, or Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) – belongs to a group of polymers. Manufacturers use synthetic fibers for making batting from polyester.
Polyester brings various characteristics and benefits. It offers the flameproof ability with high loft than when using cotton. Moreover, the products are extremely soft and stretchy.
Many companies prefer using polyester over other materials as they can easily hand quilt or needle. Yet, when it comes to bearding, polyester is not an ideal option.
In case you didn’t know, bearding is when the fibers start loosening and separating after long-time use and eventually find their way through the outer layer. Hence, it’s better for you to consider famous and high-quality brands for polyester batting to avoid this incident.
Unlike other materials, polyester can also maintain and preserve the heat, so it is the perfect material to get more warmth. However, the surface is quite slippery; therefore, working with machine quilting on this material is not suitable.
One more advantage of using polyester is its budget-friendly price. The price of polyester batting is often lower than other materials on the market. It is easy to produce them synthetically.
On the other hand, there are still several disadvantages. As it is not natural, polyester can prevent a baby’s skin from “breathing.” This material is also vulnerable to extreme heat.
Cotton Quilt Batting
As a completely natural material, Cotton had become the first choice when quilting craft and patchwork began.
Thanks to its natural characteristics, cotton makes batting breathable, soft and quickly absorbs humidity. In the beginning, it can be a little inflexible. Nonetheless, eventually, it will be soft and well-aged overtime after washing times.
Many people choose this material for making heirloom quilts as it can survive for a long time. Besides, the cotton quilt always looks homey, thanks to its ability to minimize the shrinkage situation.
With the low-loft feature, cotton batting is highly preferable for flat products, like bags, placemats, runners, etc.
The drawback of using this material is that it doesn’t look great for draping. To drape beautifully, you need to soften the cotton by washing and snuggling. With the innovative technology in manufacturing, cotton batting is now quite modern and high-quality, so it can’t easily shrink.
Fabric Blend Batting
Cotton products often come with the only cotton. In other cases, manufacturers can blend other fibers into it. The most popular combination is Polyester vs. Cotton (mostly cotton makes up 80%).
This formula helps produce quite similar batting to the 100% cotton products, yet with a reasonable price. With blend batting, the materials can minimize the chance of shrinking to the lowest. And as these products come with polyester, it is ideal for machine quilting.
Bamboo Quilt Batting
Just like the name – the material is natural and eco-friendly. The most favorable bamboo batting is a combination of 50% bamboo and 50% organic cotton. The batting will be a great drape, soft, and suitable for both machine or hand quilting.
Moreover, this batting is more environmentally friendly and even can prevent bacteria when using antibacterial bamboo fabric. We can only find this ability in bamboo, called “bamboo Kun”.
Bamboo Kun is a natural product from the bamboo plant that helps protect the plant from harmful fungi and microbes. Thanks to this feature, bamboo grows tall and strong without pesticides.
How To Choose The Best Batting For A Baby Quilt
People usually don’t consider batting as an important yet stressful topic. The reason is that they think ways to produce soft and comfy products are the most important.
However, deciding which type of batting is perfect for your needs is sometimes confusing and time-consuming. You have to choose between polyester and cotton, a huge number of brands on the market, and other factors like loft and fiber, etc.
Fortunately, we will give you some tips to help you have better insight when choosing the perfect batting for your baby.
Pay Attention To The Size
Manufacturers design their products in various sizes, including standard, full size, twin, queen, king-size, and even produce crib quilt batting for babies.
Moreover, you can even buy with your custom size. This amazing option means that you can ask for a custom cut at stores or do it yourself at home.
Although this step takes you more time, it can be a more convenient and economical option in the long term.
“Loft” Checking
As we mentioned earlier, the loft is the way we use to describe the thickness of the batting.
Low-loft Batting
You can easily see the flatter finish of low-loft batting. This feature is useful when you want to show people your excellent piecing accuracy more than the original quilting lines.
High-Loft Batting
If you choose high-loft batting, you can see the quilting lines, and your quilt will look puffier.
Extra Tips For Making A Baby Blanket With Batting
If you want your baby to love the quilt, choose bold colors, and enhance the contrast. The reason is that their visual acuity equals 5% of adults’. Those colors can be green, red, purple, blue, and brown.
Since the quilt is for your baby, it would be best to choose natural materials like cotton for fabric, batting, and even threads.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best type of batting for a baby quilt?
It depends. If you want durable batting, the best choice would be polyester, a blend of polyester and cotton, or bamboo.
What does “bearding” mean?
“Bearding” means that the fibers start gradually disconnecting from each other over time. They can go through the weave. To prevent this, finding good brands is quite vital. Polyester is an amazing material in this case.
What is the best lightweight quilt batting for a baby quilt?
In terms of lightweight, bamboo is the ideal choice as it offers various “soft and lightweight” features.
Can quilt batting go up from one side?
The reason for bearding situations is when you use the wrong side. This is very important to avoid if you want to expand the batting’s longevity. But how?
Nevertheless, right and wrong sides don’t show up in all batting. But it would help if you got the right side with needle-punched batting. You can easily discover it by observing the batting closely to find the tiny holes.
If you have difficulties finding the small holes, maybe it is bonded batting. Most bonded batting has the same sides, so you don’t have to figure out the right side.
Which other material can I use to make quilt batting?
It would be best to pick felt sheets for light quilting and flannel ones for heavy quilting. These are better choices to make your baby quilts puffier.
Final Thoughts
Machine or hand quilting will be more exciting and worth your time if you choose the right batting type for your baby quilt at the beginning.
Hopefully, our information and advice help you make the right decision when choosing the best batting for baby quilt.
If you want to share your favorite batting for baby quilts, please share with us in the comment section!
Further reading:
I’m Charlotte Jane, I love quilting. I provide my reviews of the best quilting tools. I hope to help beginners share their love of Quilting with the world.
