More basting tricks

Last month I shared a technique that I learned from Christa Watson (Christa Quilts). This new-to-me technique was basting quilts vertically on my design wall!! Here is the video that I provided in that post…..

IF you receive notification of this blog via email, the video will NOT appear and you will need to click into the actual blog to get to the video. It’s one of those “technical” issues that I can’t do anything about!!

In their comments, several people mentioned that they did not have the luxury of a design wall and did I have any suggestions for them!!

Then, last week my friend Linda asked if she could come to my house and use my garage floor to baste some larger quilts…..ones that were too big for the design wall.

After a bit of quick sweeping, we laid out her backing fabric and taped it down so that it was well stretched.

We sprayed it with Odif 505 spray, put the batting in place, and started smoothing.

At this point, I remembered another blog reader mentioned using a ruler to smooth the quilts on the floor too.

Now THAT is an interesting idea and one that I could check out!!

And look at how well it works!!!!

YES….it was easier having someone hold the batting up but it would have made the process easier even without Linda’s lifting!!

And YES, I did crack up in the middle of the video!! My videographer (ie my husband) was making jokes the entire time he was filming!!

So here is the bottom line…..

Whether you are basting flat on a floor, flat on a table or vertically on the wall…..

USE A RULER TO SMOOTH IT OUT!!!!

It will make the process easier and the end result better!!

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Easy Basting…..

No…..I am not talking about cooking the Thanksgiving turkey…..I am talking about getting a quilt layered and ready to quilt.

AND I DIDN’T HAVE TO CRAWL AROUND ON THE GARAGE FLOOR TO DO IT!!!

It started in a Houston class with machine quilter, Christa Watson. It was a wonderful class and in passing, she mentioned that she bastes her quilts on her design wall.

I have heard that people do this but I could never figure out how you sprayed it without it getting ALL OVER EVERYWHERE!! But, she mentioned that she sprayed the pieces outside and then transferred them to her studio and pinned them on the design wall.

Okay…..that might work!!!

On Sunday I started out in the garage…..

….and ended up with a perfectly basted quilt in my studio……

I filmed it as I worked thru the process and present this video to show you the nitty gritty.

The video is 23 minutes long but it is all done in real-time, meaning that it took less than 20 minutes to baste the quilt!!

Have a watch and see if this is something that you might like to try……

Obviously, I wouldn’t have the room to do this with a full-size quilt but it worked well for this large lap quilt.

Here it is after I trimmed it, pressed it, and added a few safety pins around the edge….

Tomorrow I will get started with the quilting process.

Stay tuned for more about the quilting of this fun sampler quilt!!

In this blog, I post DAILY stories about creativity, techniques, tools of the trade, and lots more about the wonderful art of quilting. If you are enjoying these posts, please subscribe to be notified of each new blog.

You might also be interested in the free pattern that you receive when you subscribe to my email newsletter.

Both of these sign-up forms are in the right column….scroll ALL the way up if you are on a desktop and ALL the way down if you are on your phone!! And, please share this post with someone who might enjoy it!!

Preparing to quilt!!

This past weekend, I showed you the finishing steps for the Star Explosion Quilt Top……

Now it was time to make the back and get it basted.

For the back, I decided to throw in a row of rectangles from the front fabrics…..

The problem with doing this is that it is too easy to get the front on at a different angle so that the back looks lopsided!! Ask me how I know this???

The method that I use to fix this problem (or at least make it less visible), is to mark both sides of the quilt with masking tape that extends beyond the edges….

Then, when I lay the top onto the back and batting, I can still see those markings and line my quilt up appropriately…..

As I spray-basted this top, I kept finding snippets of thread and corners that needed to be trimmed so that they wouldn’t shadow thru to the top. Although I ended up with this pile of Smutz…..

….I obviously missed a bunch because I ended up having to fish out two orange threads and there are a bunch of orange and navy points that are showing thru…..VERY.BIG.SIGH!!!

Once I had laid out the top and trimmed the bits, I folded the top in half…..

…..and spray the batting….

I can then work from the center and carefully position the top in place.

Then, I repeat with the other side.

The final step for me is to add a few safety pins to the edge to hold them in place….

Now is the big question…..

HOW WILL I QUILT IT????

Basting Sunday

On Sunday afternoon, I decided that I wanted to accomplish one item on my To-do list…..get two quilts basted and ready for quilting.

The first one was another Charity quilt that I will use to practice Free motion quilting with a ruler. For this one, I was using batting that had been given to me so I used a spray baste. I previously talked about spray basting in this post, but I did noted one change that I would make the next time.

So, this time I used a sharpie and marked the outline of the quilt top on the batting so that I would know exactly where the spray needed to go……

With the first one accomplished, it was time to move on to my Brown Stripe quilt and was using Fusible batting for this one. My favorite batting is Hobbes Heirloom 80/20 Fusible……

I used to lay out all three layers of the quilt and iron them all at once, but I was never completely happy with how the backing looked. Several years ago I changed the process, starting out by slightly stretching the batting and taping it to the floor.

Then I spread the backing out over the batting and smooth it in place…..

Now I take the iron and slowly iron from the center of the quilt out to each edge, vertical first, then horizontal and finally diagonally…..

I normally accomplish this by kneeling on the quilt and ironing heavily…..

When it is ironed in place, I remove the masking tape and turn the quilt over so that the batting is facing up…..

One nice thing about this method is that you can easily see the back of the quilt and can ensure that the top is straight.

Now I place the top on the batting, smooth it out and start the ironing process again.

But, this time my knees (particularly the replacement) were NOT happy kneeling so I decided to keep standing and just bend from the waist to do the ironing……

This is where the “WOW” moment happened…… As I ironed, I realized that I had previously been pressing down HARD with the iron which meant that sometimes the seams were distorted. Ironing while standing meant that I was pressing lightly with the iron but letting the steam do all of the work!! The result was a better basted piece with very little distortion…..AND no sore knees!!!

Once the top was ironed, I trimmed the excess batting and backing fabric but got a LITTLE too close here…..

I let it sit until it had dried completely and then moved it to the guest bedroom to wait until I can start the quilting process…..

It fits really well in this room!!!!

I have not made all of the decisions about how to quilt this, but I am pretty sure that I am going to do the “square spiral” design in all of the white blocks. I will do one, see how it looks and then keep going with others…..or pick out the quilting and find another idea!!!