Basting your project

There are many ways to baste a quilt project together and over the years I have tried many of them. Lately what I like doing involves a spray adhesive.

For large bed quilts the method I use involves using three fold up modeled plastic tables to baste my quilt top on. You can get these at Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Menards, all kinds of places. They come in different dimensions and I have them in several different lengths and sizes. The three I use to baste the quilts on are 8’ long by 2’ wide I think. I can set up all three side by side in my living room and then fold them up again and store them in my garage and use for other things. Mostly for dyeing fabric outside in the summer.

First I like to iron out my pieced backing fabric on top of these tables. It is a large surface and big enough to hold the whole backing. I apply spray sizing to the backside of the backing; the right side of the fabric. This helps the back of the project move easily along the sewing surface when I am quilting it. I have had students tell me that they also use pledge on their sewing surfaces to help it be slicker. That is a technical term - slicker.

Once I have the backing ironed, I also iron my batting to get out all the wrinkles.

I will then flip over the backing fabric and tape it to the tables.

I recommend you use packing tape or duct tape rather than masking tape. The masking tape will release when you don’t want it to. You can also use big clips if you have them.

I spray baste the backing fabric very lightly with spray adhesive 505. This is the product I have been using. It is great. I like it very much and use it now for all my quilting projects.

I spread out the batting and tap it down nice and smooth. I spray baste the top of the batting a little heavier than the backing. Just follow the directions on the can. When I lay down the quilt top I divide it into fourths so I can center it then open it up. It makes it easier to smooth out on the batting by unfolding it in sections because the batting with the spray adhesive is sticky, but not so sticky you can reposition the top.Be sure and put down newspaper or an old sheet to cover the floor underneath. You don’t want to get the adhesive spray on your carpet, floor or furniture.

Once the top is smoothed out I pin it around the outside just to hold it all together.

I roll it into a two tubes, and then roll up one end. You have to make it fit into your sewing machine space.

Depending on where you are working on the surface of the quilt you will be rerolling and rearranging as you go along.

The quilting comes next.