As a longarm quilter I no longer baste my quilts so much as I stabilize it while quilting so that I can work in different areas while not distorting others, I use the floating method for the most part but have been known to use the rails in my time but this is so rare that the I don’t even have a sleeve on that rail night now if that tells you how rare that is. This is a TOTALLY personal choice, like, loving broccoli or not.. no need to get your panties in a wad if you love doing a full load on your quilt.. everyone do what works for them–ok?
Each quilter will have their own methods.. for those who float it can look something like this.
Some thoughts here from Ramona How to float a Quilt Top
As well as some more thoughts from The Man Quilter himself Matt Sparrow Floating your Quilt top and batting
For those who are using a domestic sewing machine things are a bit different and I don’t think much beats using board basting to do a quilt. And the master of that is Sharon with her board basting tutorial
Some like to spray baste and I have done this in the past but with more and more people reporting funky reactions to these sprays I have backed away from this method.
Of course there is a trick to make pin basting faster! and the wonderful Pat Sloan has done a little video to cover that!
And Leah Day swears by the Pinmoors so you might want to give those a try as well!
Do you have a basting trick to share?- Leave it in the comments! 🙂
I’m a domestic sewing machine (no quilting frame) quilter.. I use the pins for my basting, but as for the way I get the sandwich together.. for smaller baby sizes I might just lay them on my trestle table or floor and go nuts with the pins.. But for the larger actual quilts I must give a big “hell yeah” to Sharon Schamber for her method, I can’t tell you how much easier it is for my dodgy knees and back.. I’ve tried the thread basting but use that timbers on a table method with pin basting and it has been great. much less stress and pain.. Oh and I use a teaspoon to leverage the pointy end of the pin up.. another tip I think might have come from Pat, is get all the pins in and then go around and close them all up, saves time!
How about using a friend’s longarm to baste a quilt? Use water-soluble thread and stitch a large meander. The quilt is then ready for hand or machine quilting and the basting thread disappears when the quilt is blocked/washed.