EasyPeezy

When I thread basted my quilts I used to put two banquet tables together with the marble
trick Tartan explained. Now that I baste with Elmer's washable school glue, I set two or
three saw-horses up and a long piece of plywood covered with canvas then baste in sections
starting in the middle. I use those bull-dog clips to keep everything smooth.

greaterexp

I'm so tickled to see some other methods of basting. I've always thread-basted the old way, but our church group is getting ready to haste our first quilt, and that noodle idea is great. I can't quite picture the school glue method. Doesn't it get hard after drying? How does one apply it?

Maire

I did that years ago when my back/knees were young enough to get down to the floor. BUT I also scratched the floor with the pins, so recommend putting a cutting mat or something to prevent the pins from scratching as you insert them. Learned the hard way. Now I have a cutting table where I can sandwich the quilt in sections, another post described that I think

b.zang

Some good ideas here.
Like many, I'm done with crawling around on the floor, although that always ensured me nice, tight sandwiches. I used the marble to keep from scratching my hardwood.
Now, I tape my backing to a wall. I then spray the top half with spray glue and stick on my batting, then repeat with the bottom half. Then, I do the same thing with the quilt top - gluing it on in sections working from the top down. The nice thing about a spray basted quilt is that there are no pins to remove as you quilt and it doesn't shift.

donac

Has anyone used a large qsnap floor frame. I have to bsste a king and have no place to do it.

sailsablazin

As others have mentioned, I use the Sharon Shamber's 2 board method to sandwich my quilts. I TRULY LOVE this method...(check out youtube). I usually make queen sized quilts and they do overhang my dining table a bit but I have not had any problems. It is worth the few dollars that I spent on several "finished pieces of trim" at Home Depot. I then hand quilt on my lap without a hoop.

nlpakk

That's basically what I do too. I belong to a quilt group that meets at the church and we put together 3-4 tables and lay it out that way starting with taping the backing to the tables if you can. I just did a king sized one that way and all the other ladies helped do the pinning. Just be sure to give directions on how you want it done and in what order. I wanted to start pinning in the middle but one other said to start on one side. I ended up with some wrinkles so when I got home, had to do some re-pinning. On now to basting, yuck!

nlpakk

I watched someone on u tube do that too but was wondering if you could do it with a large quilt such as queen or king. Seems like a great idea, will try it next time I do a smaller one to just get the feel of it before I try doing it with a large quilt. Thanks for the reminder!

Sewnoma

I glue baste on a table, using Elmer's glue. (Make sure it's the washable, school glue)

My table is smaller than my quilts, so I work in sections. I lay the batting down and then layer on the backing first, get it all straight, slide it around to make sure it's all aligned right, then start in the middle. Peel back the fabric, glue, smooth it out, shift to a new spot, peel back fabric, glue, smooth...shift, peel, glue, smooth; shift, peel, glue, smooth. Until the whole back is done. Then I go over it with a hot iron, pressing it in spots just to tack it down. Flip the whole thing over and repeat the whole process with the top of the quilt.

Then I let it dry overnight before sewing. I just toss it over the top of my sewing area, so it's laying flat-ish over the top of everything like a big beautiful drop cloth. Next day the quilting begins!

Works like a charm! No taping, no tension, no crawling around on the floor, no poking myself...and no puckers either. Elmer's is cheap; I buy it by the gallon. I used to get puckers when I'd tape my backing down; seems like I could never get a good balance where it was pulled smooth but not being pulled too taut. This way, everything is smoothed down by hand in sections and if something starts getting stretched I can see it because the fabric is on top and right in front of me.

Spray basting would probably be even easier but I work indoors and my DH is very sensitive to anything sprayed into the air, so to spare him I use Elmer's. It works great diluted so I dilute about 1 part water to 3 parts glue in a bowl and apply it with a wide house-painting brush that I sort of slap onto the batting in random patterns. I don't actually brush or it can pull on the batting, I just dip it in my container of watery glue and go slap slap slap slap - it's kind of fun!

Elmer's cleans right up with some warm water too, even after it's sat dried for awhile. I've even "unbasted" a quilt a day later - I wasn't paying attention and I had a directional back that I'd put on backwards. I just heavily sprayed that side down with water until the glue let go, flipped the backing around and used my iron to dry it out and bond it all back together - I didn't even need to add new glue.

SusanMarie1956

Zyn,

I do it that way also. When I'm done, the living room gets a thorough cleaning and furniture put back ;-)

Susan