I always pin baste. As someone else said, the pins should be a hand width apart, or closer. I use blue painters tape to hold the backing to the table, then layer on the batting. As I smooth the batting on, I use clamps to hold in place, then place the top, replacing the clamps onto the top. Kind of hard to describe. The clamps are actually wood working clamps but work perfectly for me. Then do the safety pins which I notice that I start out with a hand width between and then soon turns into to even closer than that!