Sometimes my quilts sit basted for quite a while, especially if I finish them in the summer. I don't like sitting with a full quilt in my lap when it's so hot outside...and spray basting tends to loosen with time for me, plus it is a supply I have to buy for every quilt. I have been pin-basting the things I don't send off to be longarmed, but my space is small and i have been fighting puckers in the backing on larger projects. My mother hand quilts and using a mixture of pin and thread basting. she puts just enough pins in it to keep the layers together as she rolls it onto her frame, but as she rolls out a frame-wide section at a time, she removes the pins, smoothes the layers, and thread bastes with a contrasting embroidery thread for easy removal later. It seems like a lot of extra work to me, but she swears by it.