zozee

The only part I like is petting and stroking the fabric to smooth it out when it truly is already smooth. LOL. It's therapeutic, and I always need therapy by the time I get everything everything layered and scooched and tweaked and fussed over.

Kitsie, that's my method, too. Fold back a section at a time, spray the area, fold and smooth the fabric back down, pat-pat-pat smooth-smooth-smooth. Repeat .

zozee

And now the race is on! Got so many things to do that I must time each thing so I get things and people where they need to be by 5:30. Starting to quilt this thing now while I'm still somewhat sane and fresh.

Doggramma

Sandwiching is the worse. I have so many tops to be sandwiched. At least a baby quilt is easier to handle!

tuckyquilter

I spray baste. BUT Patricia here on the Chat upped the game even better. She uses the Sharon Schamber method of rolling the quilt on boards. BUT Pat does it one better. She rolls the batting and the backing first. And then bastes them as she unrolls. THEN she rolls the top and repeats the spray basting for the top. OMG.. I've used boards for a long time but NEVER for spray basting. I DID TWO just yesterday and only need myself. I DO USE Clamps to hold the "un-boarded" edge to hold it in place and keep some tension on the parts being basted. Sharon Schamber has a youtube tutorial that might help. Zo, it's really easy.

dunster

Not having to sandwich a quilt the hard way was one of my main motivations for getting a longarm. I feel for you!

rryder

I prefer doing the machine quilting to piecing, so sandwiching is actually part of the fun for me since it means I'm that much closer to being able to start the quilting.

I use a method similar to Kitsie. I butt a couple of tables up to my large cutting table so that I can support as much of the backing and batting as possible without having to get on my hands and knees. I don't clamp or tape the batting to the table, but I do align the batting with the corner and two perpendicular edges of the table (for large quilts the batting hangs off the other two edges). Then I lay the backing over also aligning that with the table edges. Peel the backing back as far as possible without it falling off the table, spray a strip, lay it down and smooth, then spray a little more, lay it down and smooth until done. Slide whole thing over so parts that were dangling off table are now on table and repeat procedure until whole backing is basted to batting.

Flip over so batting is now face up. lay top over and do same procedure.

Goes pretty fast once I've got everything lined up. For big quilts that are going to get a lot of handling as they're quilted I also add some pins here and there just to make sure nothing shifts while quilting.

If I'm doing a quilt with complex quilting and a double layer of batting I usually then machine baste it with a grid that's about 5 inches apart so I can remove any pins I added before actually starting the quilting.

Rob

zozee

Well, I did it. Sandwiched , partially quilted and the binding stitched to the front as of 8:46 PM. Ready to pack it.

Thanks to everyone who spurred me on!

feline fanatic

Same here!!

mac

Zozee, you know you can do it. Put on your favorite music and whatever is your favorite drink and

Rose_P

Well, I'm late finding this post because I stayed busy doing quilty things for a few days. I hope you got it done in time, and that it wasn't nearly as bad as you were dreading. Please post a picture, if not now, later with the baby on it.