Originally Posted by thepolyparrot

I think I'm done with spray - I'll go back to my safety pins and tagging gun. It's more work initially, but they've never caused such blood, sweat and tears at the sewing machine as the spray.

And I was a real convert to the ease of spray basting - I basted six medium-to-queen-sized quilts in a day, a couple of months ago. I mean I really LOVED the stuff!!! :)

I pulled one of the quilts out and got the machine set up for quilting recently - did a practice sandwich and I was all ready to go. Started trying to quilt it the next day and all I could get was skipped stitches. :(

I tried changing the needle, the bobbin, the bobbin tension, the needle thread tension, the foot, the pressure on the presser foot, the needle thread... round and round and round with changes and always the same thing - beautiful stitches on the practice piece, skipped stitches and ruined designs on the quilt.

I noticed that the batt was very sticky. Did I possibly use one of the 80/20 blend batts instead of the all-cotton? Is 20% poly enough poly to react with the spray? The only time I've ever had the spray stay sticky was when I used minkee for the backing.

I notice that the needle is sticky... just like it was with the minkee debacle.... great. :?

Get another quilt out of the stack and that goes fine at first - but it's a vintage quilt top of a real scrappy type - an apple core. Even the patches are pieced and they are of every fabric under the sun... pique, challis, cotton feedsack, sateen, rayon, even wool.

And some of the patches refuse to be quilted - lots of skipped stitches in those patches. I did get the quilt done, but don't look too closely.

I still have a vintage tumbler, a jewel box, a repro wild goose chase and a Dresden plate that I basted with the spray. I hope that I did not put anything but cotton batts in any of those, and that there is no poly or rayon fabric hiding in any of them.

I tried ironing the sticky quilt to see if that would make it un-sticky, but it didn't do any good. I will need to take it apart and put a clean batt in there and hope that will work to make it quiltable.

I wish I had kept little notes on the quilts while I basted them, because I don't know if it was June Tailor or 505 spray that stayed sticky. :(