Last I posted, I showed some of my backing fabric. I couldn’t decide on which color to do for the backing so I just decided to do all of them. I put them in strips. Above is my quilt rolled and ready to be quilted on my home machine.
I decided to try doing a spray basting instead of pins based on some blog posts I’ve read. I have no idea where they are now to link them but I’ll update this post if I find them again. One of the blog posts I read recommended June Taylor brand, but I picked up some Spray n Bond basting spray since that was what they had at JoAnn’s. Fortunately I had a 60% off coupon because that stuff is not cheap (normally $15.99!) so if I have a coupon, I know what I’ll be stocking up on. I think I went a little heavy on the spray because I suspect this should get me through more quilts. It’s about half empty so I think I should be able to get another quilt out of it.
Verdit? This stuff is awesome. I hate dealing with pins and this stuff works really well. It appeared to wash off my feet easily (more on that later) so I suspect it will wash out of the quilt easily as well. I’m still quilting so we’ll see. But it’s so nice being able to manipulate the quilt and not worry about pins. Here’s what I did:
First I laid down a bunch of newspaper and taped them to the floor using painters tape. Next time I will use a large tarp because that will be simpler. Also next time, I will do this outside. Despite the fact that I had about a foot clearance on each side, I still managed to get errant basting spray on the floor around the edges. That stuff goes the distance (har har). So I had to wipe that up which was annoying. So next time: tarp & outside.
Then I taped my backing to the paper. No picture of just the backing although you can see how nice the stripes of dots are. 😀 I did press this before laying it down. The painters tape sticks “just okay” to the fabric. And the paper wanted to move — another reason for a tarp.
After I’d laid down my backing, I laid out the batting and cut it to size. I lifted one half over and starting in the middle began spraying in 12-15 inch strips, pressing down the batting in an outward motion as I went. Then I repeated on the other half.
After doing the batting, I did the same thing with the top. I folded it in half and laid the half right in the middle, then did the same spray-press-repeat for both halves.
And there you go. A lovely basted quilt. One thing I realized doing it this way is that I don’t need so much batting and backing fabric around the outside edge of the top. When I finally trim, I’m going to end up with a lot of extra. I’m sure I’ll use the scraps, but still, it’s always nice to conserve if possible. The last two quilts I finished I did on a longarm which needs a lot more wiggle room, but if I’m doing it on my home machine, that’s not as necessary — especially with the spray basting!
I’m also happy to report that now that I’ve started quilting, the spray basting hasn’t gummed up the needles at all!
