Hi all! I’m asking for a friend who is making a T-shirt quilt and she heard of a backing that includes the batting already sewn onto it which would save a lot of time and headache. Do any of y’all know the name of this item or can point to a site or store that has it? Thank you in advance!
P.S. I know nothing about quilting, so assume you’re talking to a five year old.
I think what she’s looking for is “single faced pre-quilted fabric.” I’ve seen the double faced version (it has fabric on the front and back with batting in the middle. The single faced version has batting on the back and fabric only on one side) at Joann’s and I may have seen the single faced version as well, but I can’t remember for certain. All the versions I’ve seen seem to be quilted with a diamond pattern. The batting does not seem to be very thick and I’m not sure on the softness of the material, but if she has a Joann’s nearby, it’s definitely worth taking a look (and feel).
I’ve never seen or heard of a backing+batting material, aside from the pre-quilted fabric that Audiobooklover mentioned. I know what she’s talking about, and it is not really soft or drapey, like you would want in a quilt. Could you or she be thinking of ‘basting spray’, which is a spray adhesive, some people use to baste the batting to backing & to the front of a quilt? I know lots of quilters use it, because they like not having to pin all the layers together, but I’ve never tried it, because I hate how basting spray gums up the needle on my machine.
She is still going to have to attach the t-shirt front pieces to the backing or else it is going to bunch up and not lay nicely…I think she would be better off doing a pillow case style using fleece fabric with no batting and then stitching down around the t-shirt squares…that’s what I did…
Fleece and the t-shirt fabric have give…that pre-quilted stuff is pretty stiff, IMO…and the colors are limited.
You should try the non-stick teflon needles…I love that basting spray and have never had an issue using the non-stick needles with it. It changed my whole way of looking at the whole quilting process.
Even if I can avoid the gummed needles, I also don’t like that it gets on other nearby stuff. The woman I bought my embroidery machine from used it constantly, and it’s all over the machine body, the hoops, the clear grids you use to line things up in the hoops, the spools of thread, etc, etc. All with years of lint now stuck into the gum… 
(Though I do appreciate you mentioning the teflon needles. I hadn’t heard of those. Love you!)
I clean off my surfaces with goo gone…and I spray using a huge old queen size mattress cover that I throw in the wash…
The teflon needles are also great for going through very thick layers…and, I have three pairs of scissors that are also teflon coated to cut anything with glue, paint, etc. Best new tools ever!
I buy threads from Superior Threads…they have a lot of information on various needles and that is where I discovered my most favorite needle for embroidering with metallic threads! I also love using the twin needle and sharps are now my go-to instead of the universals. I never knew that a simple thing like a needle could make sewing so much more enjoyable for me…better late than never, I guess…ha
Oh wow, thank you for all of the replies! I’ll copy/paste into an email for her.