I used to help my mother make wool bats and then make quilts. We started with raw wool and washed it 3 times in a wringer washer in cool water, air drying it on a rack. We would then hand card it to fluff it up and clean out all vegetation, burs, etc. We then fed it into a hand crank machine carder to make bats. Once we had the bats made, we set up a quilting frame to the size we wanted and covered it with a muslin cloth. On this we would lay the wool bats and then cover them with another muslin cloth. The two layers of cloth would be pulled snug and thumb tacked to the frame. We would take a darning needle and yarn and go through fro the top and back up from the bottom. We would cut the yarn and tie the 2 ends. This was repeated on a 6 inch grid pattern over the whole quilt. Next was to sew the edges on a sewing machine. After this, you make a slip cover. We always used a flannel bottom and a decorative patchwork top. That is where the artistic part comes in. The slipcover can be removed for washing but too wash the quilt, it must be totally disassembled and the whole washing to batting and assembly repeated. I hope this helps.
.png)
