Tackling the Cotton Batting Scraps

I don't have nearly as many cotton batting scraps as I had poly batting scraps. It's definitely not because I use cotton batting less, I actually use cotton batting more often. I don't mind piecing cotton batting scraps, and I use a lot of the scraps up in small project like potholders or table runners. In fact, I had a few table runners started, and I put them up on my design wall to evaluate which needed borders, and how much cotton batting I needed to make them, I wanted to only use scraps. 

I had six table runners started, I ended up adding borders to four of these. The brown ones I left as is, the rest got borders. 

The first thing I did with the cotton batting scraps is pull out my largest scraps. When I want to make heat resistant table runners, I use two layers of cotton batting and one layer of Insulbrite. Is that overkill, maybe, but I don't want to tell someone -yes, they can put hot pans from the oven on it, then have great-granny's antique table damaged. We want to protect the table at all costs, and three layers of batting works. 

I ended up having large enough scraps that I basted five of the runners without piecing any batting, even though I had made four of these larger with borders. For the sixth runner, I took the odd sized smaller scraps, and pieced those together. So now all the runners are basted and ready to quilt.

Next I pulled out the strips of batting that were 4" wide or less. If any scrap is narrower than 2.5" it goes into the trash immediately, and never goes into my batting scraps. All of these strips I cut into 2.5" wide, and rolled them up like a Bosal batting roll. I can use them for jelly roll rugs, baskets, or any other project that uses that technique. Oftentimes, my sister does projects like that, so I give them to her if she needs them before I do.

I ended up with three good sized rolls of 2.5" wide batting strips. 

Next I cut the sides of all the larger scraps straight. I just piled them up on my ironing station. These are folded multiple times so it looks like more than it is. 

Now they are all sorted roughly by length. I do have some shorter strips off to the side, that you can't see, but I'll deal with those last, because depending how these sew up, I may sew the shorter strips end to end to make longer strips, or I might sew them next to each other with another table runner in mind. The seams to sew these together will be long, but cotton batting is easy to work with. I've got a lot of plates spinning right now, so I think it will likely take me two or three days to piece all this, but honestly, if I dedicated one day and only did this, I could probably finish in a day. It might be a long day, but I think I could.

I still do have some pins left, because I've been reclaiming pins during my one hour per day of FMQ, but I haven't decided if I'm going to be matching these battings to quilt tops right away, or if I'll just label each Frankenbatting with the size it finished at and use them later. I still have a big stack of stuff basted, so I'm leaning towards just labeling the cotton Frankenbattings and dealing with them a little later, when I'm not quite so busy with other things.