black or white batting?

[mike&kelly]

Yippee!!!

We're on our way!! My husband and I purchased a Millennium with all the bells and whistles and are quilting a charity quilt for our ladies quilt group at church. That's the good part.

Here's the bad part: the quilt is 90.25 inches square and the quilting group leader brought in a black batt that SAYS it's 90" by 108", but it's more like 86" by 105". I can't remember the name (not Hobbs - it's a 100% poly), but apparantely, our local quilt shop only carries this particular batt. We tried to load it, but it just won't work. Of course, the quilt is supposed to debut at the annual ladies' tea on April 29th HAH!!

The fabrics used in the top are good, tight weaves. It's a delectable mountains pattern in jewel tones with a rick black variagated background. There's a slight grayish swirling undertone to the pattern on the black fabric. The customer wants to dye Warm & Natural black. We're nervous that the batt will bleed into the mountains and the jewel tone butterflies we're quilting over its surface if it's dyed at home. Frankly, I don't see that a white batt will beard through the fabric. Am I way off?

Of course, we want our first public piece to be top-notch, but we also need to please the customer.

Any suggestions?

Mike & Kelly

[sspingler]

If this is all you have to work with, cut some off the 105" side and zig zag it the the shorter side to make it big enough. I usually us a zig zag on the dsm or do a ladder stitch by hand.

[Ferret]

Most of my quilts are very dark with a lot of black in them and I haven't had any problems with white batts. I like the suggestion to piece the black one to fit, that sounds like the best of both worlds to me.

Oh yes I have been told by several people to just not even try dying batting apparently it takes a lot of dye and does bleed.

Good luck

Ferret

[Sherri]

I would definitely piece the black batting rather than try to dye the white.

And you might even want to piece the batting by hand.

Overlap the two pieces, then cut a slightly wavy path through both layers (using a rotary cutter)

Discard the scraps - the two pieces will now fit perfectly together.....then whip stitch the entire length. Less chance of creating a "ridge" that machine stitching could leave.

Hope that helps.

Sherri Dolly

Overland Park, KS