Batting Bath

I have officially decided to pre-wash and pre-shrink my fabrics and batting. I've put too much into this quilt to see it all get puckered in unexpected, funny ways. Since my quilt top is almost all sewn together, I thought I should go ahead and work with the batting a little bit. I threw the batting in my bathtub, and started to soak it in tepid water for about 10 minutes.



I know this is probably not the proper way to hang your batting to dry, but that batting was heavy! I tried to squeeze out all the water I could, but it's a huge king size sheet, so no matter what I did, it weighed a ton.


This weekend, I'll have to give my quilt top a wash/shrink and go looking for some backing fabric. I'm leaning on something brown so far, but I'm not sure yet. I'm not even sure if I should buy fabric or find a 100% cotton sheet for a king size bed. If I get a sheet, I won't have to cut a thing, but if I buy fabric, I might some big square/rectangle piecing on the back. Any ideas?