Originally Posted by
sewbizgirl
Also, if I used spray basting would it slow down the needle of cause any kind of 'drag'?
There are some quilters who use ***very light*** spray basting when they hand quilt. However, it will definitely create drag and make hand quilting more difficult for you. I would not recommend trying it for your first hand quilting project. Also, keep in mind it is easy to use too much basting spray, in which case it would not be possible to hand quilt at all as there would be way too much drag on the needle. And no one wants to try to wash out basting spray in an unquilted top (requires lots of precautions in order to not ruin the top).
For hand quilting, you really want to either hand baste (using a single strand of lightweight thread and very large stitches) or machine baste with water soluble thread. You can pin-baste, but pins tend to interfere with hooping and, even if you hand quilt without a hoop, pins also tend to catch your hand quilting thread and hang you up as you are working.