I hate to baste.
There, I said it.
When my husband heard me voice this opinion, he thought I was talking about cooking a Thanksgiving turkey. No such luck. I was referring to pinning, sticking, or somehow attaching the three layers of a “quilt sandwich” together — the top, batting, and bottom fabric — in order to get them all smooth, wedded to one another, and ready for quilting. (Quilting, in this sense, meaning stitching through all three layers.) It’s a tedious process that can take a lot of time.
Many quilters use safety pins, which come in various sizes and are either bent or not. But after going through a few hundred pins — one ever 3 inches or so — one’s hands feel and look raw. I even bought myself a “Kwik Klip” tool to try to make the pinning easier. It’s a little metal rod with a handle that lets you pick up the pin ends and clip them or unclip them quickly. But it doesn’t make the bending or poking that much better.
My basting-aversion is why this lovely batik Trip Around the World quilt that I pieced is currently residing, semi-basted, on my loveseat:
This time, I thought I’d try another method, one that wouldn’t risk me sticking my fingers with pins and bleeding on my quilt. And for me, this is a large project, so I just couldn’t face so many pins! So I got some Hobbs fusible cotton/poly batting, which promises to allow the quilter to simply iron on fabric to make it stick to the batting. Well, I tried ironing all three layers. But unfortunately the backing is SOOO wrinkly, despite my best-laid plans.
Then my two-year-old daughter came along and tried to use the half-basted, “lap size” quilt, to swaddle her baby doll. That did NOT help.
I guess I’ll need to remove the backing, which can still be peeled off, and try to iron it onto the batting from the back side.
I’m going to do a little research on this. But if anyone out there can recommend methods for using fusible batting, please do let me know!
I’ve also heard many quilters sing the praise of basting spray. I may try that next time if I can find a well-ventilated area to tape down my backing fabric and spray everything in place. Perhaps my driveway on a sunny day?!
Seemed like an honest mistake at the time! Much like my brewing hobby. Making the beer is the fun part, but bottling the beer, not so much.
If you use spray next time, don’t try to do the whol quilt in one go, fold back the top and spray half, smooth back down, then do the other half. 🙂 Hope that helps 🙂
Thanks, Trudi, this is very helpful! Do you spray baste outside or indoors? On a table? I’ve heard it can be quite sticky:) By the way, I LOVE your blog!
I just basted a wall hanging and was all up in my head about how long it took and how much I hated BASTING. I have a full size quilt all basted that I’d like to have machine quilted, but nooooooooo I already did the strenuous labor of basting the )(#&(#$& thing, and I can’t bring myself to rip it out! It’s insane, and you’d think there would be an easier way to get the job done. I’m not big on adhesives, I think the spray chemical component will have long term effects we know nothing about – like those peel and stick photo albums back in the 70’s – they have destroyed the photos in them. Oh well, meanwhile we have to grit our teeth and carry on. I feel your pain!
Yeah, I do wonder about the future, long-term effects, too. Not just on quilts but on our lungs. Is your full size quilt basted with thread or pins? I’ve only thread-basted one really small piece that I handquilted.
I have always thread basted my quilts and wall hangins. I bought some pins to try that technique, but I hand quilt and it seemed so clunky to me.
My current project is a lady of the lake quilt that has a bazillion seams. I’m going to have it machine quilted (if I ever get top put together, the blocks are done and sewn in rows.) I’m avoiding both the basting AND quilting on this one, I’m kind of excited about it!
I have used the basting spray, Spray N’ Fix 505, for a number of small projects – table runners, placemats and a baby quilt. I just checked online to see if studies have been done on the long term effects of this spray and other similar products. Here is a link to check out: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=iqscresources
I have not used the spray on anything larger than a baby quilt and have resorted to basting which I, too, do not like. Carole
Thanks for this comment and for pointing me to this link… I do plan to try out the spray soon. Another thought: with pins, I wonder if using those pin covers (little plastic things) might help make things easier at all? I might try some out if I can find some time to attach them.
i don’t hate quilt basting but i do hate basting in the limited garment sewing i’ve done. annoying! some readers of my blog also suggested the adhesive spray — i haven’t tried it yet though. good luck. the top looks gorgeous. i am so (sew!) impressed.
Sharon Schamber has a good method for thread basting a quilt. i’ve done it and works well. I just used normal thread when I did mine not tatting thread, and I did unpick areas before machine quilting. I found the tacking cameout easy even when sewn over.
There are 3 videos on youtube for it, copy and paste address above for the first
opps I meant to say I DID NOT take out the tacking before machine quilting. the tacking came out ok when was sewn over, I was just careful.
Thanks for this clarification… I would definitely try that, esp. on a smaller piece.
[…] you already know, I am NOT a big fan of basting quilts – that is, connecting the top, batting, and bottom fabric of a quilt before you sew through […]