New battings - bamboo & "green"???

[Julia L.]

I can't imagine recycled soda bottles. I wonder how well you can quilt through it ... by hand or only machine??I'll look forward to hearing what y'all find out.

[Julia L.]

I have just ordered some rolls of the green batting from Quilters Dream, their blurb says it's just the same as the polyester bat, but slightly green in colour. I'm looking forward to trying it. Here's what they say:

"Dream Green is a soft, cozy batting made 100% from recycled plastic bottles! Dream Green meets our highest standards of quality, function and performance. Your needles will glide through this unique eco-friendly batting. Finished quilt may be machine-washed and dried with little to no shrinkage. Dream Green is wrinkle-resistant.

Each pound of Dream Green Batting keeps 10 plastic bottles out of our landfills. Plastic bottles are cut into chips, washed, melted and extruded into fine polyester fibers. These recycled fibers are indistinguishable from “virgin” polyester fibers yet are made without depleting our precious natural resources. To avoid additional processing we have kept the soft “natural” green bottle color – but you can rest assured that Dream Green is colorfast and compatible to all your finest quilts and projects. "

[Julia L.]

I'd like to try some of that bottle batt. A suggestion: if you use one of the new 'green' batts, write it on your quilt label - quilt recipients and future generations would probably like to know...
-Tina

[Julia L.]

Hi Y'all,
I just bought my first package of bamboo batting, but I have to say it wasn't entirely intended. I went to JoAnns to by my batting and was expecting to seem my favorite Hobbs 80/20. However, I found no Hobbs at all and instead I found the bamboo batting. There were other battings as well, but they had higher lofts than I really wanted.

While I have intended to try bamboo at some point, this quilt I'm working on is one for my eight year old nephew, and since it's probably going to get much lovin' and washin' I really didn't want to try something new.

I haven't started the actual quilting yet, but I have sandwhiched the quilt. So far, so good. It has a very nice feel to it, and it was less wrinkled than Hobbs usually is. That did make the sandwiching go a little easier since sometimes the fold lines in the Hobbs can be quite annoying.

One thing I did like was that the bamboo is naturally resistent to bacteria and fungus. That's probably good for a quilt that will get much lovin'!

BTW: I didn find it very interesting that JoAnns (at least the store I go to) decided to REPLACE Hobbs with the bamboo. I know floor and shelf space is always at a premium, it was quite a shock to see Hobbs missing. The bamboo is incredibly expensive, and had I not had a JoAnns coupon, I probably would have looked elsewhere for my batting. A twin size package of bamboo was $39.99... that seems like a awful lot of money just to be "green"

Sharon

[Julia L.]

Good luck and keep us posted on how the quilting goes! I'm waiting to try mine as well. I got some bamboo batting at my local Joann's about a month or so ago but I got it because they had theirs on clearance. I got a twin size package for about $4.00 and a crib size for even less. I figured it was worth a try for that price! Maybe your store was just trying to get rid of theirs by replacing it temporarily on the shelf? I hope it works out for you!

[Julia L.]

Because most of the bamboo bats are 50% cotton, they behave pretty much as a cotton bat would, but are softer and more pliable. I liked the one I used. I haven't seen a 100% bamboo batting, so can't comment on that.

[Robin G.]

I used the "green" soda-bottle batting for my "Daylilies Four Ways" quilt and found it easy to work with. It had a nice feel and the needle didn't encounter any issues. It hangs very nicely, too, so I guess I've been really happy. I have not yet used it for a quilt that will be washed. That's a whole different ballgame.

[Cheryl K.]

Thanks for the update about the soda bottle batting (that sounds so funny). I'm still using the battings that I have and I am still in love with the Tuscany wool batting so trying something new has not been top on my list.

Glad to know that these new battings will work for wall quilts.

Kim

[Cheryl K.]

The soda bottle batting is identical to their regular poly bats (apart from the colour), soda bottles and the poly fibres for batting are made from the same base material. Presumably if you melted your poly batting you could make your own soda bottles :lol:

[Lynn K.]

My concern about all of these is this:

What chemicals are required to get it from original state to batting state?

I understand all bamboo battings are made overseas where the environmental restrictions aren't prohibitive!

[Frances L.]

The chemical issue was discussed previously in the fourm here: forum/index
Frances from Austin, visiting in Reno

[Keith D.]

I think that's where we discussed that Kyoto was made in the United States and the packaging says Fairfield's Nature-fil bamboo is made in the United States also. ???

[Keith D.]

I'm a mediocre consumer! I don't tend to trust marketing gizmos unless, of course, they support what I already think. I should be equally skeptical about advertising whether it supports what I think or contradicts what I think...

But then I'm looking at my Generous Queen (?) Fairfield Nature-Fil bamboo batt and it says "Made in USA" and I don't know what that means either. Does that mean that they grew the bamboo in USA and processed it into soft fibers in the USA and then made a batt out of it in USA? Or maybe they bought bamboo that was made soft and wonderful in another country and then made a batt out of it in USA?

And researching bamboo processing on the internet is not easy either...

So I've got a scrap card trick and when I'm done binding this current quilt, I'm going to stick my bamboo into the card trick, quilt it, and see what I think. If I like it - I think I'll keep using it and I'll smile (maybe in ignorant bliss) thinking I'm green because bamboo grows really fast and makes a lot of oxygen and is naturally antibacterial. And if I don't like it, I'll go back to cotton, maybe organic, but then I don't really know what that means either...

Either way, I'll report back. And I hope others do to.