Waddings & Battings Directory

Warmth Is Trapped Air

A wadding insulates by stillness: its fibres divide air into pockets too small to circulate, and the thicker the layer of still air — the loft — the warmer the product. Making wadding is therefore an exercise in not crushing fibre: carded webs are crosslapped to width, then stabilised just enough to handle — resin-bonded with a light spray of adhesive, thermally bonded with low-melt fibres, or needlepunched lightly — and sold by roll, by sheet or pre-cut to quilt and mattress sizes.

Fibre writes the character. Polyester dominates for washability, resilience and price, in grades from basic bonded batt to siliconised hollow-fibre fills that imitate down's loft and recovery. Cotton batts serve quilters who want a flat, traditional drape and natural fibre; wool batts regulate temperature and resist flame naturally, at a higher price; and recycled-fibre waddings fill furniture and economy bedding where appearance never shows. Blends tune the balance product by product.

The Makers Listed Here

Airtex (USA) is listed for high-loft waddings for bedding, upholstery and furnishing from cotton and polyester, plus foam products, as part of Federal Foam Technologies, Inc. Akelyaf Nonwovens (Turkey) covers thermal- and resin-bonded waddings for filling applications in garment, furniture, bedding and home-textile industries, plus ball fibre for blow-filling. Allied Woolmen Insulation Group (Australia) appears for insulation materials and ventilation systems built on wool.

The full list runs from craft-batting brands sold by the bag — names quilters know, such as Mountain Mist and Quilters Dream Batting, both listed below — to industrial fillers supplying mattress and furniture factories by the roll. Each listing keeps its country and description as originally stated, and the descriptions name fibre and bonding route, which are the two facts a wadding buyer needs first.

Choosing a Wadding

Choose by the product's life, not its first feel. A quilt batting must survive years of washing without migrating or clumping, drape as the quilter intends and take quilting stitches at the spacing the design needs — makers state a maximum stitch distance for each batt. Garment wadding must stay even through narrow quilted channels; upholstery and mattress fills must resist compression set, the slow flattening that turns a plump pad into a hard sheet.

Ask for loft measured under a stated load, the bonding route, and wash-test results at the temperature the product will meet. The thermobonded directory in the chips covers the bonding technology behind many modern batts, and the needlepunch directory covers the lightly-needled felts that serve the firmer end of the filling trade.

Wadding Beyond the Quilt

The same lofty webs fill a wider world than quilting: toy and cushion stuffing (often as ball fibre, the wadding's loose cousin), pet bedding, aquarium and pond filtration pads, thermal packaging liners, and the acoustic quilts hung in studios and plant rooms. Producers below who describe filling applications in garment, furniture, bedding and home textiles are naming that whole economy in one line — wherever a product needs bulk, softness or still air at low cost, a wadding is the default material answer.

Fire behaviour divides the applications. Domestic upholstery and bedding in many markets must pass smoulder and small-flame tests that untreated polyester meets only with the right construction and companions, while wool's natural resistance keeps it specified where regulations or insurers are strict. Makers state their test compliance in their fuller literature; buyers for contract markets should ask for certificates by product name, because a batt that passes in one thickness and density may not in another.

Wadding & Batting Makers Listed Here

36 companies and organisations are listed in this directory, carried from the original Apparel Search listing with each company's country and description as originally stated. Follow a name to the company's own website.