I always baste down the sides as I go as well as the top and bottom. Just tried my hand at SITD the entire quilt before doing anything else. Used smoke colored Monopoly 100wt thread in the top and a pale beige BottomLine in the bobbin as the backing was a beige fabric. I was amazed at how much the top thread just blended in to whatever fabric you were stitching on.........light and/or dark. Now my SITD isn't perfect and I found I did better without rulers but I was able to go completely around the quilt by advancing it without breaking the thread or having to tie off until I came back to where I started. I did this between the body of the quilt and sashing, then between the sashing and the border and of course the outside edge of the quilt. It helped stablize my quilt nicely so will continue to do this. I was just putting an E2E in the body and custom (digital) patterns in the sash and border.