I tried to baste one time and it pulled everything out of shape. I never tried it again.

My machine doesn't have a basting stitch as such and is all manual action. I float my batting and tops, so sometimes will use a regular stitch across the top of the quilt, but don't find that even manual basting down the sides works that well for me. It tends to skew my tops a bit sideways. I quilt only for me. And am a beginner, just doing pantos.

Yes all the time! I use the basting stitch to stitch down my top along the sides and top. It is easy to remove stitches and it is more forgiving when borders are a bit wavy. I set mine to 3 stitches an inch.

Same thing happened to me.

I use it everytime I quilt. When I load the quilt, I baste down the right side. I use a regular stitch for the top and left side, but the basting stitch on the right allows me to smooth out any fullness that might accumulate as I go left to right. (Hope this makes sense.)

Me too, Gemrm and Texassimsjome. Since my Gammill has no stitch regulator, I just slow down the stitches per second and bast that way.

I have robotics on mine and have programmed a basting pattern to go across and down the sides. Just have to adjust the length, hit the baste button and the way I go.