What does drinking soda and quilting have in common? Batting! Hard to believe, but the new Dream Green batting by Quilters Dream is made 100% out of recycled plastic bottles. In fact, every pound of this batting keeps 10 plastic bottles out of landfills.Seems hard to imagine that you could get a nice soft batting out of a soda bottle; however, it's entirely true. The recycled bottles are cut into chips, washed, melted and extruded into fine polyester fibers. These fibers are completely indistinguisable from virgin polyester fibers, yet they are made without depleting precious natural resources. And even though the batting has a sort of green cast from green colored plastic bottles, the batting itself is color fast. Needles glide through this batting with ease.
Quilters Dream says their new product is wrinkle free, can be machine washed and dried with little shrinkage, and can be machine or hand quilted up to 12" apart. It has been carded, crosslapped and needlepunched for uniformity, strength, and resiliency, with no scrim or resins.
Available in select loft, I'm using a twin sized batt for the quilt I'm currently sending off to be machine quilted. According to the package, that means I'm saving 13 plastic bottles from a landfill. And get this, all the left overs are completely recyclable too! I can tell you that this batting feels just as soft as Dream Poly batting, with the added benefit of being earth-friendly. I'll keep you posted as to how the quilt turns out.
