Working with Wadding

Julie Bonnar from The Pattern Pages discusses choosing wadding for your next sewing project

Have you ever dreamt of making a quilted jacket? If you have, then a good quality wadding – or batting as it’s also known – will be key to a well-finished garment!

What is it?

Wadding is a non-woven fabric that’s used as an interlining. It’s placed between the fabric layers and sewn together for warmth and to add texture. It can also be used in other areas to give fullness to cuffs and collars and across the shoulders on coats.

Wadding Terms:

Loft - Loft refers to the wadding’s weight and thickness in terms of its fibres. If it is thin and soft, the wadding is known to have a ‘low’ loft and a ‘high’ loft is thicker and fluffier.

Scrim - This describes a light layer/grid of woven or non-woven fibres that’s added to cotton waddings and gives the wadding a right and wrong side. It acts as a stabiliser and holds together better while quilting. It’s much stronger and the layers don’t separate when washed. It also allows quilting stitches to be further apart and is great for machine quilting.

TIP: You’ll want the scrim side to be facing the inside of the jacket

Wadding Types

Wadding comes in cotton, wool, polyester, bamboo, soy and blends and different lofts. Choose a lightweight, low-migration wadding to make a quilted jacket. It needs to be comfortable, breathable to wear and have a good drape.

• Wool generally has more loft and density than cotton wadding, so quilting it ends in a fuller jacket.

• Polyester wadding is fluffy and will give you defined quilting lines.

• Cotton and cotton blend wadding is flatter and perfect for more complex quilting patterns and also has drape.

TRY: Manmade iron-on Vlieseline VLH630 and VLH640, Legacy Thermolam, Legacy Cotton, Legacy Cotton/Poly and Legacy Bamboo/ Cotton – all these cotton and blends have a scrim.

Tips for sewing:

Always choose high quality wadding

Inexpensive options can suffer from the wadding fibres poking through the fabric spoiling the garments overall look.

Pre-wash your wadding, the same as your fabric

Wadding should resist shrinkage but it’s best to be on the safe side as you have three separate layers.

Match your wadding colour to your fabric

Wadding comes in black and white, and some in buff colours.

Always quilt a large test piece

This will help to see how your fabric, stitching and wadding work together.

Hovea Jacket from Megan Nielsen