Oh Jan, what a bummer!
Unfortunately your post has been edited so I can't see the quilt, but I can commiserate on the basting. I'm sorry you're so far away or I'd volunteer to come help you pick stitches! That sort of thing goes about 10 times as fast if you have even just one helper.
As for my basting technique - I glue baste (Elmer's), up on a plastic folding table that I set up on risers. NO more crawling, hunching, squatting...so much better on my poor back. Also no more taping backing down, and no more poking myself or creating super sore spots on my fingers from pinning.
If I'm doing a baby quilt I can just eyeball things but otherwise, I fold my batting, top, and backing each in half (separately) and mark the fold points with Clover clips, then do the same on the other sides, so I know where the middle of each side is of each layer in the sandwich.
Then I plunk down my batting on the table and I like to start with the table pretty much centered in the batting. Then I lay out my backing and get everything lined up right with the clover clips. Leaving the clips there, I then fold it down to expose half of the batting, and drizzle-dot my glue. Smooth the backing down, repeat on the other side. Shift the whole shebang over to an unglued area, peel the backing back again to expose more batting, add glue, smooth it down. Shift, peel, glue, smooth, shift, peel, glue, smooth...until the entire backing is done.
Then I just flop the now glued backing and batting over and start over for the top - center the batting on the table (naked batting side up), lay the top out carefully to make sure all my clips are lining up OK, then start the "shift, peel, glue, smooth" routine over again with the top.
When all of that is done, it needs to dry. If I'm not in a rush this is when I drape it over something so it's flat-ish and just walk away and let it sit for a couple hours (or more often, overnight). If I AM in a rush, this is when I roll out my big pressing board and spend some time heat-pressing all over the whole quilt. The clips come off as soon as all 3 layers are stuck together.
Once the glue is dry, the quilt is really well held together and will tolerate quite a bit of handling without coming apart. I check for any bagginess, puckers, misalignment, anything weird BEFORE I put any stitches in. If I find anything wrong, I can either spot-wet the quilt for small fixes, or if I've really made a mess of things I can throw the whole thing into the tub with some warm water and soak the layers completely apart and start over. (This is a messy process but I've done it a couple of times and you can never tell when the quilt is done!)
Stitch it all up, and toss it in the washing machine when done. Presto! A quilt with no puckers.
