Basting- pins vs spray or? What do you do?
 

Holy cow. I basted the t shirt quilt, and 300 (!!!) pins weren't enough, so I went back today for more.(/and may I say that I do not like Dritz safety pins- they were not sharp at all,) and I finally got it basted all over. The pins are about 4 or 5" apart. Then I decided I should practice the quilting stitching on a practice sandwich, so I made one, and used scraps of the batting, so I used spray basting because I thought it would glue it together. Um, yeah! ItI'sm o perfect and smooth, wondering why we don't all use it all the time. What am I missing here, or am I about to find out when I start stitching?

Boards and pins for me. I am not interested in spraying anything in the house.

I have been spray basting for years. You have to find the spray that works the best for you. I have not tried the Elmer's white school glue for basting the entire quilt yet but I do use glue sticks for matching seams. And I use the Clover clips for help with the binding. If I don't have to use pins - I don't.

All I ever use is pins. No sprays in the house, I have a bird.

I have used Elmer’s washable glue to baste a 120 x 120 king quilt and several other quilts and I don’t use any other way now. It it so fast and easy! And they end up so nice and smooth!

I just use pins....lots and lots. My current quilt has about 500 of them in it......pinned every 2-3 inches. I'm lucky as I have a large table top I can use when I am basting so I don't have to kneel down on the floor to do it. I don't like spray baste. I have tried several including 505 and have had problems with fabric shifting every time. It's fine for holding practice sandwiches or small projects but that's about it....as far as I'm concerned it just doesn't hold up with all the movement and manipulating done whilst quilting a quilt any bigger than a cot quilt......This is just my opinion derived from my own personal experience anyway. I don't think the wool/poly batting I use is particularly compatible with the spray baste........never seems to hold my sandwich unless I quilt straight away....if I come back the next day I've always got fabric separating from the batting....not glued any more. And yes, I've read the instructions, watched all the you tubes and followed umpteen forum threads on the subject. I tried Elmers White Washable school glue the other day for the first time and it was easy to apply, dried well and left me with a fabulously glued together sandwich but my machine hated it; kept intermittently jamming and not feeding. When I applied the glue I even used a scraper to make sure the glue was spread out. In the end I soaked the whole quilt sandwich in the bath tub to dissolve the glue and separate the fabrics and batting before drying and re-basting with pins. Now that it is basted this time with pins the sewing machine is doing fine.....go figure. Have never heard of anyone having the trouble I have had with this product...guess I'm just lucky that way!!!!!!!

OK, how do I quilt it without running into my safety pins? Anyone have a video I should watch? Thanks.

I have had good experiences with Elmer's school glue and use it often. I did not have bad experience with pins but it made a large quilt very heavy for me and they had to be moved as I sewed. I also have had good results with thread basting and the boards like Sharon Schambler recommends. I do not like the idea of spray baste because of the fumes and mist that settles on everything around. I don't use sprays of any kind in our home.

Isn't is fun to try new techniques? Congrats on your adventure.

I just started using the basting spray again for some embroidery machine projects. I also used the washable glue on my last quilt to secure the binding before stitching. It ended up one of my best looking bindings so far. It just clicked for me.