Wool + Linen Disaster... can this be redeemed?

[elf.makes]

I had fun naturally dying linen last summer and have been working on my first quilt. Very casual & beginner, I know it's far from perfect, I'm okay with that... however what I am not okay with is how much the wool batting is poking through!! I've already spent 5 hours pulling wool off but it only makes it worse. Every time I pull some out, the fibers pull more wool out. Using sweater shavers & lint brushes hasn't helped.

I've kind of given up on this, I even washed & dried it before top stitching it because I wanted to see if that would work for matting the wool (it didn't, it only made it more clumpy). It's whatever, hopefully I can learn what went wrong and do it better next time.

So this leads me to my question... Is this because I used linen, which has a more "open weave"?

I'm thinking wool batting probably should go with cotton fabric...

Thanks

 

[jimerickson]

What type wool batting did you use?  I use Hobbs, and I've never had a problem with bearding.  I've used a lot of Hobbs wool, and it isn't "furry" like what's coming through your quilt.

Certainly linen is a poor choice for a quilt fabric. most of us use 100% cotton all the time.  Jim

[SueD]

I would say this is the combination of wool batting and the open weave linen fabric.  Some batting can beard worse than others and from what I've read, wool is more prone to that.  

I don't think there's a way to stop the bearding once it has started.  If you're set on keeping this, you may need to take it apart and put different batting.  You may want to look for one with scrim which is a fine layer of bonded fibers which may keep the batting from bearding.  

What brand of batting did you use?  And did you do any quilting before you washed it?  You said you washed & dried before "top stitching"?  If you didn't add any stitching to hold all the layers together, then that's why it's a clumpy mess.  All battings will give you a minimum quilting distance.  That's the maximum space you can have between stitching lines for the batting not to migrate within the quilt.  Hobbs wool batting is 4".  Other fibers can have more space - sometimes 8"-10".