Normally when I am making Frankenbatting, I am very careful to only use very similar weights of batting together. Of course I sort by fiber content as well, but I like to use low loft with low loft, and high loft with high loft as well.
When I finished basting the last poly Frankenbatt that had been matched with a quilt top, I went through the remaining poly batting scraps again. I had the baby sized batting I had pieced but had no quilt top for, could I make it a bit larger and match it with a quilt top? I dug out every poly batting scrap I still had, including the pieces I had cut off from the Frankenbatts I had made after the quilts were basted, and a scrap left from the last piece of my poly batting roll. Did you catch that? The LAST piece from my poly batting roll! I am in no way short on batting right now, I have a full roll of Warm and Natural, along with a partial roll of the same (almost gone). I also have a mostly full roll of Hobbs 80/20, but as far as 100% poly is concerned, aside from a couple of prepackaged battings, I am out of poly batting.
The fact that I'm not going to be having a steady stream of poly batting scraps coming in for a while, made me feel like keeping any poly batting scraps right now would be silly. With the decision to not save any poly batting scraps right now, I looked at what I had left differently. If I ignored loft, I could not only make the baby batting into a throw, I could also make a second throw sized batting. Sure, it was more piecing than I normally like to do with poly batting, but to get two more donation quilts finished with batting scraps? It's a win in my book.
I basted one of those, and, yes, I could feel the difference in loft while basting. I'm hoping it's less noticeable once its quilted. Would I mix lofts from now on? Probably not, but for right now, when I have no plans to buy more poly batting, and I just want to use what I have, finishing two more quilts is worth the variance.
The last poly Frankenbatt turned out larger than I expected, but these scraps are going to be tossed after I baste it and trim the edges. I like to only have about an inch of the backing and batting hanging past the quilt top when it comes time to quilt it. I'll trim it exactly after quilting. Those batting scraps will be tossed, guilt free. Since I just opened a roll of Hobbs 80/20, I'll use the hamper I had been using for poly batting scraps for the 80/20 scraps instead.
The to-be-quilted pile is growing, but so far the quilt top stash doesn't seem to be going down much. I have WAY too many quilt tops right now, so finishing needs to be my focus for a long while.
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