"It takes ages to finish a quilt you're not working on!"

Thursday, August 04, 2011

Batting tape review.

Tonight I finally got around to doing a test run on the batting tape I bought at the Quilt & Craft Fair last week. For those of you who want to know what to look for, this is the packet it comes in. And this is what the tape looks like - very thin, with a rough side that is the side you iron on to your batting pieces. A bit like fusible interfacing really. I had this long strip which wasn't going to be good for much until I cut it in half.. and joined the two long bits to make a small oblong. Just right for a mug rug! Aha! Just found another useless long bit, which I shall now join to the first two, to make a slightly bigger piece. I think I'm going to like this stuff!
Joy suggested joining bits of batting by joining them together with zig zag stitch. I tried that, and it was a bit lumpy. The batting tape is so thin that it doesn't make any difference to the thickness of the batting, unless you overlap the bits of batting that you are joining. There is one aspect of the tape that isn't mentioned in the brief instructions, but I thought of it because I made this mistake once before. I used an applique mat underneath the pieces I was joining, and a piece of Gladbake on top. Some batting can melt with the heat of an iron, especially when it is held down for 10 seconds to fuse the tape. I used several types of batting, and none of it melted while I used the applique mat and paper on top, but I wouldn't like to hold my iron on top of it without that protection.

3 comments:

Doreen G said...

looks like an interesting discovery Gina.

Catherine said...

Thanks for posting about the tape Gina. I learn something every time I visit your blogs.

Joanne said...

I'll keep this in mind for when I eventually get over knitting and back to quilting. :)