4F- All about Batting!

Where do you get your batting from, do you buy a special brand?
Recently I went out looking for batting to go with a quilt I would like to finish up.
But where to start, I asked Elita store owner of Busy Needle Quilting in Switzerland, she sells Quilter's Dream Batting and Aurifil Threads to all EU countries.  Here is what she said about the ones she sell's in her shop.  
You have to decide what kind of feeling you want to provoke with the final quilt. Do you want it to look like an antique grandmother's quilt, all crinkly & sweet? Do you want it to be a more modern that will likely be on the the sofa or the wall? Sometimes people who use poly are after a puffy look, like a comforter for the bed. So for all three of these, I'd recommend a different batting (of course-ha!):

Old-fashioned look - Select Cotton

Modern - Select Poly

Puffy - Dream Puff

The major difference between the Select Cotton & the Select Poly is that the cotton will shrink a good bit & become crinkly. The poly will not shrink much (if at all). If you're doing embroidery, you might want that to stand out a bit more so poly would be a good choice. Out of the package, they are essentially the same thickness. If it's a baby quilt, those get washed a lot so poly is good for that too. Either one of these can be hand or machine quilted without a problem.

For the puffy look, the Dream puff is perfect. It will need to be machine quilted or tied because it's just too puffy to hand-quilt. I think it shows good texture with quilting too because it puffs up between the lines.

The Green (this one is made out of recycled plastic bottles it is green in color) one is a nice alternative to the Select poly but the slight colour of the batting can sort of show through your quilt if you use a lot of quite pale fabrics.

Wool, which I love because it's puffy but a natural fibre. It's cool in the summer, warm in the winter, lightweight & fluffy.  It can be washed & dried with no problem.

 

The bamboo, frankly, I reserve for special quilts. It is wonderful to hand quilt, lovely machine quilted too, but as it's a bit more expensive, I'm picky about who's quilt I put it in.

 

Thanks Elita for all of the helpful information, I also read a great article here, from Fort Worth Fabric Studio, did you know Warm and Natural was not ALL NATURAL, gasp, I didn't and that is what I had purchased in the States.

Green double I saved 17 plastic bottles from going in the trash :)

Pictured above is the Quilter's Dream Green (purchased previously from Elita), Quilter's Select Poly (I won from AGF), Bamboo and Warm and Natural (I bought both in the States at JoAnn's with a coupon)

They are all about the same thickness, the warm and natural is the one on the bottom, can you see the bumps in it, this makes it very hard to do hand quilting on, I found it a dream to do hand quilting on the polyester one though.  The green one I am saving for my organic quilt that has been a WIP/UFO for a few months.

Batting is one thing you probably want to order from your own country, I just found a girl from Greece Myrto and she told me about a shop in Athens, ARGYROPOULOS, next time I am in Athens I will have to go there.  But for now I shop with Elita and she is really great at helping you, she even offered to audition fabrics against the different battings so I could figure out which one I wanted :) so sweet.