Rose asked how I piece batting together. This is something that I’ve done for years and years – 99% of the batting I buy is one the roll. It’s just less expensive to buy in bulk but that means that each piece I cut off is the length of the rolls – most of the rolls I buy are 90 or 96 inches long.

That pretty much means I have a leftover piece at end of every top I quilt and I’m not going to waste those pieces.

I typically buy just two brands of batting – they’re both 80/20 (80% cotton and 20% polyester) and I only use the same brand when I’m piecing a batting …. So the pieced batting would be all Hobbs or all Pellon.

I usually piece any where from 2 to 4 leftover strips together depending on how big the quilt I am going to use it on is. I make sure all the pieces are wide enough … and sew the first 2 together with a wide zigzag … increasing the stitch length and stitch width to their maximum on my machine. With the new machine, I also needed to decrease the amount of pressure on the presser foot.

After sewing the first two together I trim to the smaller piece – again after having made sure that it’s wide enough for the intended quilt and then I add another piece following the same process. Zigzag and then trim even. I find it’s easiest if I alway sew with just one piece under the machine arm so that’s how I position the batting as I’m adding the 3rd piece.

My Pellon batting has a scrim so I’m always careful to make sure that I’m sewing the pieces with the scrim down so they’ll all be on one side of the finished pieced batting.

If needed, I add a 4th piece and trim.

Carolyn shared a link in the comments of my previous post showing how she does it … she uses a lot smaller pieces than I do.

And Wanda commented “The 3 step zig zag makes a nicer flatter join than a plain zig zag”. So that’s something you could try too although I’ve always used a plain zigzag without any issues …. Except that the new machine needed less pressure on the pressure foot to get a nice smooth join.