be careful of your dining room table with those pins. my girlfriend ruined hers but her Hubby refinished it for her. When i pinned i used a folding table. it has a one inch depth so i used the white clips Eleanor Burns sells on her site, Quilt In A Day. before that i used a folding picnic table and used binding clips. I would clip the backing in place, add the batting, smooth it in place and reclip. then add the top, reclip. then pin, pin, pin. good luck.

I have been using Sharon Schamber's method, it works very well. Last weekend my daughter and I used this method to baste her king size quilt- no wrinkles. You can watch her video on youtube.

The three things I do to keep puckers and wrinkles from happening ..iron or smoothout any wrinkles or fold creases, Spray baste instead of pins, and a walking foot.

I heavily starch my backing fabric before layering. This stabilizes the fabric so it is much less likely to pucker when machine quilting. My method is to mix a 1:1 solution of Sta-Flo liquid laundry starch and water, "paint" this solution on with a large wall painting brush until the fabric is saturated, toss in dryer, and iron with steam.

Also, in my experience spray basting does a better job of preventing puckers than pinning ever did for me. I think this is because spray basting keeps the layers continuously "stuck" to each other; with pinning the "stuck" parts are 4 inches or so apart.

The really nice thing about 505 is that you can reposition the fabric if needed. Just be careful not to over due it. A little goes a long way, and your machine will appreciate it. BTW, no more pins for me either!

You must secure the backing, taught but not tight. Tape works for me.

I pin baste, but there are a few things that still give me problems. I've done 3 quilts of a certain pattern and each one gave me fits in the center. The center of the top is heavily appliqued in this area, and I'm wondering if the fusible makes it so rigid that it doesn't move with the backing. When I have normal fabric on normal fabric, I have no problems. Hmmm.

Are you hand quilting or machine quilting? Are you loading onto a rack?

Another Sharon Schamber fan here!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhwNylePFAA

When I baste, it is close enough that my no matter where i put my hand, I can always touch the basting. I know that basting is time consuming, but it is so important to keep my layers from shifting.

nancy42,
I have the same problem. I've done what the others have said here, spray, pin iron, starch, spread out on large surface; it doesn't matter.
My backing always wrinkles, shifts, whatever. When I move the fabric sandwich to the sewing machine, it moves on it's own, it seems.
I just say, "That's the way I quilt." "It's an original."