Here is an alternative opinion.

Agreed that polyester does melt at high heat, but if it is high enough to melt the fabric you would not have the baby anywhere nearby. The type of cloth (I think) you are refering to I call fleece fabric. The advantages with this fabric is that it is very easy to wash and dry quickly and it does not shrink or need ironing This is good where babies are involved I actually made a couple of baby sleeping bags for my daughter out of a double layer of fleece when she was a toddler (that way they can't roll out and get uncovered and wake up mum & dad hollaring because they are cold!) I do know that a number of other members have made baby quilts using minky/fleece happily - but off the top of my head I cannot remember who.

You mention that you haven't prewashed the cotton - have you checked for colour fastness? ie will any of the blighters bleed colour on the first wash? If they are all soft colours you are probably ok.

I would probably finish up making the top first. Then you have the choice of washing it to pre- shrink or you could just carry on and make it up and then when it does have it's first wash it will get the soft & puckery look, that happens and some people like especially for quilts that are meant to be loved & used hard, as opposed to show quilts.

No I don't think that you will need batting as well as fleece, unless it is destined for a particularly cold area.

Finishing - you could bind or you could just fold under the seam allowance of the cotton and stitch it down flat to the fleece. Fleece does not fray, if the blanket you are using is larger you could cut a fringe into the fleece if you wanted to.

My technique for just preshrinking fabric that is still in yardage (but will work fine for cuts) is lay it in the bottom of the bath tub with as few folds as possible, with the plug in. Boil the kettle and pour over, add a second kettleful of boiling water and rub over with a spatula or fish slice to make sure the fabric is completely soaked, adding hot tap water to make sure that it is fully immersed. Leave it for an hour or 2 to cool down/get side-tracked with something else. Drain the water out, squeeze out as much water without screwing/twisting the fabric up and get it outside to peg on the line as flat as possible, use lots of pegs about every 6-8" This method avoids getting lots of creases in the fabric that then have to be got out with ironing. If it is small pieces lay them flat & square on a towel to dry. It doesn't necessarily need lots of agitation or soap to shrink, just hot water, in my experience.

Hi Heather, I am no expert and opinions do differ but I personally would not use anything other than cotton or wool in or on a baby blanket. The problem with polyester is that it melts in high heat. I would stick with cotton top, wadding and backing but I am sure there are others with alternative opinions.

I'm working on a baby quilt -- it's pieced triangles; each triangle is cut size 4.5" tall by a 3.5" base, joined in pairs, then the pairs joined and so on until they make long strips, then the strips joined.

I was planning to back with regular quilters cotton, the same fabric as I'm using for the bulk of the front. Then I saw a baby blanket made of that soft, plush microfiber and thought it would sure be sweet and soft for baby.

Started researching; closest I can find on-line is in articles referencing "minky" fabric; this may or may not be similar, but I guess close enough. Here come my questions, then ---

it is a 100% polyester blanket, so the suggestion is to pre-wash the cottons before making the quilt sandwich & quilting. Problem: I already cut and started piecing the cotton. Is it too late to pre-wash? How would I go about that in the best way??

Wash the pieces? Assemble the top and wash it before attaching to the back? Or, assemble and quilt as normal then wash and deal with whatever funky shrinkage issues I get from having front cotton and back poly?

Is this a big enough hurdle that I should scrap the plan all together and just stick with regular cotton backing?

If not, my other question is if I go with the blanket as backing, can I skip batting all together? Do I need a middle layer of something anyway?

And, lastly, if I can go with the blanket, then do I bind it all as a regular quilt? Or how would one finish off a quilt like this?

This is a gift for my sister-in-law, and I want her to love it, so if there are issues with the microfiber, please say so! I do have the fabric for backing that I planned to use originally, and have no problem giving up the idea of using the blanket as backing if you all say it's not going to work at this point.

Thanks for any tips! I'm juggling three projects right now and wanted to ask this before I forget and get sidetracked!