I spread out my backing on my basement floor old carpet, smooth on the batt and then the top. I iron from the center out with about a 5 second pause at each press working any extra quilt top to the edges, this fuses the quilt enough to flip the whole sandwich upside down. I then work on pressing the back from the center out working any extra backing to the edge. I do the back after the front because it is more important that it is fused perfectly because I can't see it when FMQ. Occasionally I will need to re- iron the sandwich edges by the time I get to them from manipulating the quilt through the machine. I put safety pins along the sandwich edges to prevent them from peeling at the machine.