This is how i'm doing it right now. My raffle quilt that i'm doing is 86 inches square, and too big for me to quilt in one piece, so this is the first time i've tried quilting in sections. The centre medallion is 40 inches square, so i batted and quilted the centre medallion. First thing i did was a quarter inch seam right around the edge, then trimmed the batting and backing, i did this first to keep it square. Then i did all my quilting right to the edges. Then i did the two side sections, then the two ends. For those pieces, i sewed right around all three edges, then did my quilting to within one inch of the joining edge. Then i joined the seams, then i trimmed the batting. Then i whipped stitched the batting to the medallion edge. Then flipped over the backing fabric, and am in the process of hand stitching these HUGE seams! I have to say it was much easier to do the quilting this way, but all this hand stitching is taking me days to do. When i have my hand stitching finished, i will then finish machine quilting it. I will make sure that i machine quilt the areas where the batting has been joined, that will make it secure and not come undone. I think next time i do this, i will try the way admin said in his last newsletter. His way was to quilt and bat just centre section, and then bat and quilt the rest, but the big dif was, he did his backing in all one piece, and just rolled the extra fabric out of the way. Then he just had to qhip stitch the batting, but did not have to also hand sew the backing pieces together. I know i havent explained this very well, but you can join the pieces together, if you make sure that you also quilt over them too.