What kind of batting.  I'm really, really picky about batting…

Warm and Natural is my personal favorite, for the price.  Or wool.  There are superior products out there, but they are more expensive than I like to pay.  Some of the pricier ones are less flexible, which is just not an option for me.

I use Warm and Natural for almost everything.  You can leave up to 10" in between lines of quilting.

JeannieB said:

I don't know much about batting, but my sister has used white fleece in the last couple of quilts.  Any thoughts on that?  She handquilts if that makes a difference.

Every quilter has their own bias about batting.  It's a very personal thing, in my experience.  It very much depends on use, what feels right to the quilter, and a bunch of other stuff.  There are no rights or wrongs.  Maybe that's why there are so many varieties?

The versatility of Warm & Natural works very well for the kinds of things I make.  It shrinks nicely and doesn't beard through a well used quilt.  It's not as easy to hand quilt as either wool or poly.  Many hand quilters will get a blend so that they have the characteristics of cotton with the ease of quilting the synthetic.

For my own projects, the fleece would have too much loft.  But it would be wonderful in baby quilts, for instance, and for anything where the quilter wants a lot of durability, stability, and some loft.  And it would be really warm, right?

Oooh, oooh, oooh!  Just remembered my best deal last year!

Elder-Beerman was having a sale around December 1.  Again.  (I usually don't pay much attention.  They seem to have some sale going any day of the week!)

What caught my eye was a waffle iron.  A nice round Oster with temp settings, several lights to indicate readiness, etc.  $60 MSR.  On sale for about $19.  And an additional 20% off for seniors using the charge card.  We'd been looking for a round one for some time, having already proven that a square one would have to defy the laws of physics to heat evenly.

I had to be in the neighborhood for something else the day before the sale started, so I wandered in to check out the product.  On the way, I glanced through the "Old Country Roses" display.  A very helpful salesman came to assist.  We had a grand time with his scanner gun.  It turned out that all the merchandise was clearanced!  I got a teapot set (only wanted the teapot, but the set was less than half the price of the individual teapot.  Duh!), an odd cup and saucer (clearanced, of course, for less than $10), and 2 waffle irons, tax, title and carrying charge for $124!  It was as if I bought the 2 waffle irons at regular price and got the other stuff free! 

The guy helping me turned out to be the department manager and he decided that he should just give me the sale prices the day before rather than having to find a place to store the stuff and me drive back the next day for it.

Yes, we plan to use both waffle irons at home.  When you are making waffles, do you really want to serve one at a time???  We tried it out and it was great.  We got to have two people munching on hot waffles at a sitting.

Oh, and the teapot set turned out to be the large set rather than the smaller teapot on display for individual sale.  So, what was already a phenomenal deal was even better!