I’ve been quilting for a little more than a year now.  Still relatively new to the quilting world.  I love it.  My favorite part is the design.

I LOVE poring over pinterest, magazines and quilt blogs to get ideas then turning it into my own creation! I even have a graph pad and colored pencils to try out my little designs.

Then my next favorite part would be picking out the fabric.  So many colors and designs!

I even love cutting all those little pieces and sewing them together.

But I HATE the whole “basting” part. That’s where you put all three layers–quilt top, batting, and quilt backing–together so they can be quilted.

I’ve been using the spray basting method to sandwich the three quilt layers together. If you aren’t familiar with this, it’s a spray version of glue.  I do this in our guest bedroom.

Oh, let me tell you what a pain in the ……. knees it is!

First I tape the backing to the floor with blue or perhaps green tape.  Then I lay the batting on top of the backing, just to make sure it all fits.  Then I pull the batting off.  And spray half of the backing.  Put the batting back down and do a kind of roll thing. Adjust. Adjust some more. And I’m kneeling on the backing as I do all that.

Then I spray the other half, adjust, adjust, adjust.  Up and down, more kneeling. Meanwhile the blue or green tape starts coming up.  I growl a lot during this process.  Then I put the top on.  Pull up.  Spray. Kneel a bunch.  Growl.  And then after I have it as close to perfect as I can get it, carry it to my sewing room.

Then I wipe down every inch of the guest bedroom because the glue is a spray. And the glue is EVERYWHERE!

There’s another basting method using pins. I tried that a very long time ago and it was not a happy memory.  Now I’m thinking that was a very long time ago and perhaps I should try it again. Because your memory can change. (Kind of like childbirth.  Who would have more than one kid if you retained that first memory!)

So I bought some pins especially made for quilt basting.

Then I stumbled across a tutorial for “Quilt as You Go” from Shiny Happy World. (Also called QAYG. Because everything in our web-centric world should be an acronym.) I’ve looked at these tutorials before and say to myself “and what does that do for me?” But this one actually made sense.

When I made Piper’s queen-sized “Heart of my Heart” quilt, I had trouble quilting it and ended up doing the center portion by hand.

I have a new machine with a deeper “throat” but it’s still difficult to quilt around each block–especially if I want to do a fun pattern.

I’m already piecing one quilt now and don’t plan on doing QAYG for that one.  And I usually only have one quilt in the works at a time.  But I’m making an exception.  I know this quilt will take me quite some time since I already have a full DIY agenda. So I’m thinking a block a month.  Starting next Thursday.

See you then!