Birthdays, batting and more....

I finished UFO#5 last evening during Survivor. This is the 3rd couch size quilt I've bound using that bunch of 1.5" strips I sewed together. I'm still happy when I think about that newly emptied bin! I've been calling this one "VIP Blues". Mostly because I have very little VIP fabric in one(or more)yard cuts. Keeping the 4.5" squares all the same completly used up that piece of stash! Mill Ends still has a fair amount of VIP and Concord, but on Monday, I saw Moda there(in batiks) for the first time. They also clear out a lot of Mary Engelbritt production overrun. And I just remembered I was suppose to take a picture of my new fabric and I forgot! Oh well, tomorrow!
 My birthday just seems to keep on, keeping on this year. This lovely, lovely bundle of fabrics(sporting eyeballs no less)arrived a couple of days ago from my friend Cher of Marathon Quilter fame!
Cher and I have been stitching together and swapping jokes and Grandma stories for a couple of years now. I absolute love the fabric Cher, thank you so much for adding to my birthday joy! *VBS* And now the batting....For sure I wasn't advocating that pieced batting would work or every quilter. Nor do I think you can use it in ANY quilt...I think it's NOT appropiate for quilts when you've invested much time and money to create the quilt top. I do, however, believe it lends itself well to scappy quilts, quilts for kids, couch quilts, comfort quilts basically. And there were a couple of questions. Do I piece polyster batts? YES...but NOT on the sewing machine. Like several of you mentioned, I hand stitch them together, using an overcast or whip stitch. I make sure the outer edges are well tacked in place so they don't open up. Once the binding is stitched across there, it's pretty secure. Like many of you, I scrounge through my box of batting pieces for small projects. Unfortunately the batt accumulates faster than small projects can use it up. I thought about it alot before I tried the machine piecing. And when I decided to "TRY" it, this is what I made... a little quilt sandwich. I took two small pieces of warm and natural type batting. I tried it with a 1/4" seam. I pressed the seam open. That was hard, note to self, wider seam needed. Then I cut a couple of 2.5" squares of flannel and made this little sandwich, which I machine stitched around.
 
  I've carried it around in my purse, handing it to various quilting friends to see if they could tell that the batting was pieced. Once they knew it was, THEN they could feel it, but not so much before I told them. Mostly because they weren't looking for it to be any different. Held up to the light, you can see the seam, but you have to work at "feeling" it with your fingers.
So I tried the pieced batting in my Hourglass quilt(a UFO in this challenge). I made wider seams...too wide, and I didn't stitch them down. What I learned is that the wider, unstitch seam sides had a tendancy to roll up as the front or backing was moved across them. Not terrible, but frustration to try and reach into the sandwich and smooth out. Light bulb moment, stitch them down once they are pressed open. As for bulk, yes....there is some, especially is you piece in shorter section to create a longer section. When it comes together as a T seam, you get bulk, almost too much. So avoid that if you can. If not, well, that's up to you. For me it's not that big a deal, but I think it would hard to hand quilt through. The machine handles it fine, and I was able to tie through it without much effort. So...if the idea works for you, give it a try. If you don't like it, you aren't out much of anything. This, like everything about YOUR quilt, should be what YOU think is best. *VBS* Oh yes....from Ms. Ebby several loud "hiss"'s, she had her yearly checkup yesterday and her 2 year Rabies shot. She wasn't impressed! P.S. Don't tell any one but she weighs 13.3 pounds and is now offically known as a BBC(big-bellied-cat!).