Not every quilting project is a bed quilt. Table runners, wall hangings, placemats, tote panels, and small crib or lap pieces all need a middle layer too — but cutting them from a king-size package or a long roll wastes material and time. A craft-size package solves that neatly: one pre-cut piece of batting, sized for small projects, ready to open and use.
What This Batting Is
Pellon® Natural Cotton Batting With Scrim in the 34" x 45" Craft Size Package is a quilt batting — the warm middle layer of the quilt sandwich, placed between your top and your backing fabric. Its fiber content is 93% natural cotton with 7% polypropylene scrim.
The batting is needle punched, a process that mechanically locks the cotton fibers together. It also includes a soft scrim, which is a very light stabilizing layer. According to Pellon, that scrim lends strength and stability without bunching or bearding. Bunching is when batting shifts and clumps inside a finished project, and bearding is when fibers work their way through the top fabric and show on the surface. A scrim helps the layer hold together as one even sheet, which is especially reassuring on smaller projects that get handled, folded, and washed frequently.
Best Uses for a Craft-Size Piece
At 34" x 45", this package is sized for craft and small-format work rather than full bed quilts. It suits table runners and toppers, wall hangings, placemats, small baby quilts, lap pieces, and quilted panels for bags and home décor. If your top is smaller than the package, you can trim the batting to size and save the offcuts for mug rugs, coasters, or test sandwiches for practicing quilting stitches.
Because it is natural cotton, it gives a soft, flat finish rather than a puffy one — a good match when you want a runner to lie smoothly on a table or a wall hanging to hang straight.
Loft, Shrinkage, and Quilting Distance
The loft is 1/16 of an inch, which is low loft. Your quilting lines will sit close and defined rather than raised, and finished pieces will drape softly without much bulk in seams or bindings.
Shrinkage is 3–5%. That means a finished piece may draw up slightly the first time it is washed, which often creates the gentle, crinkled texture many quilters love in cotton quilts. If you want to keep that effect to a minimum, account for a small amount of size change when you plan your finished dimensions. Whether or not you prewash is a project choice, but with a 3–5% range, do not expect the batting to stay exactly its packaged size after laundering.
The recommended maximum stitch distance is 10" apart. That is generous spacing: your quilting lines, whether hand or machine stitched, need to be no more than 10 inches apart to keep the batting properly supported. Wide spacing makes this batting forgiving for simple straight-line quilting, large grids, and projects where you want the fabrics, not dense stitching, to be the focus. You can always quilt more closely if your design calls for it.
How to Use It
Open the package and let the batting relax flat so fold lines ease out. Lay your backing fabric right side down, center the batting over it, and place your pressed top right side up. Smooth all three layers from the center outward, then baste with pins, spray, or long hand stitches so nothing shifts while you quilt. Quilt within the 10-inch maximum distance, trim the excess batting and backing flush with the top, and bind as usual.
Care
This batting is washable by hand or machine and is dry cleanable, following the care needs of your top and backing fabrics. Respecting the quilting-distance guideline is what helps it stay smooth and even through that washing.
For small quilts and quilted crafts that need natural cotton softness, low loft, and the extra stability of a scrim, this craft-size package is a practical, no-waste place to start.
Shop the Pellon® Natural Cotton Batting With Scrim 34" x 45" Craft Size Package. at Linda's Electric Quilters.
