Do you or don't you?
 

https://cdn.quiltingboard.com/images...s/confused.png I have made my quilt sandwich and spray basted the layers. Next ,I plan to do an all over free-motion quilting design.

My question is : Do you stitch in the ditch to stabilize the quilt layers before free-motion quilting? A friend told me to sitd to avoid puckers on the back of the quilt before I free-motion quilt. My backing is minky. Thanks for your advice!

No. But if quilting on your domestic machine you need to have the quilt and backing well pinned. Would you consider quilting with the backing on top so it doesn't sag, or tacking it that way before quilting. Maybe even starch the minky to keep it firm, or use a spray adhesive. Just my thoughts.

It depends on a lot of things, for me that includes the size of the project and the style and complexity of what I am quilting. Free motion can be anything from a large meander to very tight and complex designs.

If I can, I like to do some sort of stabilizing or grid to start with. I was recently given a quilt with a large fancy star shape, current thought is that I would indeed stitch in the ditch around the star points to stabilize and then fill in the sections with free motion.

Even on a small project that is sprayed down nicely, I'll put in a few stabilizing safety pins until I get some stitching in. Just a few. So, if I'm starting in the middle, no pins there but the corners and edges are held down.

I thread baste my sandwiches, absolutely hate pin basting and the over spray from spray basting keeps me from using it.

umm...you are doing an all over design....then I think the important thing is to stabilize it which you have done by spray basting it. Don't know the size but there are suggestions out there to also do some pin or thread basting as which the movement of the quilt under the machine and readjusting as you go, the spray basting could come loose. If you were going to do more custom quilting....then yep got to stitch in the ditch first.

No, I spray, pin and start in the center moving out to the corners whether it is minky or cotton. Minky is a different beast from cotton. When I work with it, I go slower and make certain there are no wrinkles and stretching before I stitch down a new section.

I use Free Fuse powder to baste. It washes out.

I spray baste and if it seems a bit unstable, I will do an ocassional pin. like every 12 inches. Slow work and lots of smoothing along the way. The majority of times it all works out very well. Ocassionally, not so much but those bad time are operator problems not product problems. https://cdn.quiltingboard.com/images/smilies/wave.gif

I have never used minky. You are on your own on that one.

I glue baste with Elmers washable school glue and do not stitch in the ditch at all if I can help it.

I thread baste with the tatting thread and herringbone stitch as shown by Sharon Schamber. I've not had a back shift with this method. As far as stabilizing with SITD, I know this is recommended by some, and I even watched a video about it, where the teacher showed the same quilt with and without the stabilizing stitching. My question has always been, doesn't it look awfully messy on the back? So no, I do not SITD before an allover FMQ design, because I want the back to look good, too.

I also use Elmers washable school glue and most of the time I do stitch in the ditch. I feel better doing that.

I do an over FMQ I never do a STD with it. I do a large stipple or meander. I always pin baste with large safety pins.

I think part of the reason for using Minky on the back of a quilt is the additional "coziness" and softness of the minky fabric. I have used Minky and did ONLY stitch in the ditch to preserve the fluffiness of the minky. All over quilting would stitch down the fluffiness and kind of defeat the purpose of using that fabric for the backing in the first place, especially if that all over quilting was too close together. Just my humble opinion.

I have used wash-away thread to stabiize sometimes. It works well!

I have been using Elmer's School glue for some time now and am able to FMQ much easier. No need to sitd.

I don't. I do make sure that my FMQ is close enough together to hold everything in place. I've done quilts as big as 60 x 90 this way and it was fine.