Bobby's Quilt Is Basted, Ready for Quilting

Six Hundred Safety Pins Later...

Happy Tuesday Morning!  I'm headed to the dentist in a little bit, but wanted to share that I've got Bobby's Quilt basted and ready for quilting! 

I had quite the time with this.  As it turns out, I haven't finished a big quilt in several years, and the last time I had to baste something bigger than a baby quilt I used this standing height, temporary island cutting table made from a 1" thick melamine top balanced on top of four small book cases:

Basting Lars's Drunken Dragons Quilt Back in 2012

I no longer have that table -- we took it apart and recycled the materials back when we redid my studio.  My new cutting table is much bigger, has one long side up against the wall to save space, and has a very thick maple butcher block countertop.  It doesn't work for quilt basting because even the largest binder clips are too small to fit around the butcher block for securing the backing fabric.  I also really need to be able to hang the quilt off all four sides of the table for basting so I can start in the middle. 

I knew the new cutting table wouldn't work for basting when I designed it, but since basting is an infrequent task, I thought I'd just bring in a folding utility table when the need arose.  Well, I looked at Staples, Lowes, Walmart, Home Depot, everywhere I could think of, and I could not find a normal table ANYWHERE.  You know what I was looking for -- one of those dark brown rectangular tables like they use at church bazaars or in quilt show classes.  The top of the table is only about an inch thick and it has an overhang that ordinary office supply binder clips will fit, and the surface of the table is smooth so it is easy to stick safety pins through all three layers of the quilt, slide the point against the table top beneath, and poke the pin back up through to the top of the quilt so you can close it.

Well, the table I had to use for this has a 2 1/4" thick gray PLASTIC top with a textured surface: 

30" x 72" Table That Is TERRIBLE for Quilt Basting!

We raised it up to a comfortable standing height by sticking the legs into lengths of PVC pipe, but the only thing I could find to clamp fabric over that thick edge were these awful (and expensive!) Handi-Clamps from Home Depot.  I could not use as many of them as I wanted to because of the cost.  Also, these clamps do not lay flush on the surface of the table like binder clips do -- they create big hills of batting and quilt top, and since the batting and quilt top do not get clamped with this method, they are draped over those hills for several hours at a time while I am pinning in spurts and taking breaks from sore fingers, the previously starched and flat quilt top and batting tended to want to KEEP those hills when I unclamped and shifted the next section for pinning onto the center of the table. 

Drunken Dragons Quilt, All 3 Layers Flat and Smooth Over Binder Clips

This Quilt, Giant Clamp Hills All Around the Table

My Terrible Clamps

The textured surface of the table made it really difficult to pin the quilt as well, because the tip of the pin would get stuck in the dimpled surface of the table instead of gliding across a smooth surface.  So, just what I need when I'm up against a deadline -- additional challenges caused by makeshift equipment, right?  Anyway, I did the best I could with what I had to work with.  I do not think I got everything aligned as well as I did on my past quilts, and in fact, I felt some worrisome ripples in places when I ran my hand across the top and bottom surfaces of the quilt, but I don't have time to take out all those pins and redo it.  What's more, even if I did try to redo it, I'm afraid the results wouldn't be any better because I'd be hampered by the same issues.  I can't find a better table locally, if I ordered something to have shipped it wouldn't get here in time...

My batting is Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 Cotton/Poly.  It can be quilted up to 3 1/2" apart.  I'm hoping that if I keep the quilting fairly minimal, I can avoid serious tucks/pleats/disasters.  WISH ME LUCK!  The Quillow Ceremony is June 5th!

For basting future quilt projects, I've ordered the Sew Essentials Home Hobby Table from JoAnn's, which is currently on sale for 50% off:

Reviews on this table are mixed.  It is the right height and size for quilt basting and it will fold up and roll out of the way when it's not needed, but some reviewers complained that it wasn't very sturdy and/or was difficult to assemble.  I am counting on my dear husband to address those issues if necessary.  Anyway, I'm headed for a quick shower and then off to the dentist for a cleaning.  Happy Tuesday, everyone!

I'm linking up with WIPs on Wednesday at Esther's blog.

Basted Badly, and Basted Again. On To the Quilting!



Basted... And Basted Again

Several hundred safety pins later, my thumbs are sore, but my quilt is FINALLY basted and ready for quilting!

The internet is rife with tutorials instructing quilters to crawl around a hardwood floor on their hands and knees to accomplish the basting procedure, but I don't do hands and knees.  I prefer to baste my quilts on a standing height worktable, without inflicting any agony on my hands and knees, and I've done this successfully in the past -- but not on tables that were pushed up against the wall like this one is.  I opted to move the worktable back up against the wall when I remodeled my studio in order to economize space.  Since my worktable base consists of kitchen cabinetry and wooden cubby units and my butcher block work surface weighs over 700 pounds, it's not like I could just scoot the whole thing out a few feet from the wall temporarily, either.  I thought I remembered that I had somehow managed to baste a similarly sized kiddo quilt with Minky backing on this new worktable two years ago, but I could not for the life of me remember how I managed to do that. 

So I decided to wing it.  I spray basted with 505 and then I pinned like a madwoman.  And then I flipped the quilt over after a couple of hours of pinning and discovered THIS:

Backing Side Up, The Wrinkle Of Doom

Ugh, right?!  I had worked with the top 2/3 of the quilt that fit on the table first, then spun it around to do the other side, but that slippery Minky formed a crease all the way across the quilt where it had been hanging over the side of the table.  If I left it that way I would have horrible pleats and puckers all over the back every time my line of quilting stitches crossed over the Minky Mountain Range on the back of my quilt.  So today I had to take all of the pins out of the bottom third of the quilt, pull that Minky taut, and repin.  I think it's good now, but note to self here -- next time I baste a quilt, I need to have Bernie get the folding utility table out of storage.  We can set it up in  the middle of my studio temporarily and raise the legs to a comfortable height with pieces of PVC pipe.  That way I can tape or clamp the backing in place to the table edges on all sides, do my pinning from the center out, and when I'm working on the outside edges the weight of the pinned areas of the quilt will help to keep the backing taut and wrinkle free.  Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I'm pretty sure that's how I basted the last quilt I completed, the raffle quilt for the kids' school.  It's probably how I did the Dresden plate Minky quilt, too, and I'll bet I'm hallucinating this whole idea that I managed to do it on the new work table.

(In case you're interested in the CORRECT way to baste your quilt on a table surface rather than the floor, there are excellent instructions in the book Quilts! Quilts! Quilts! by Diana McClun and Laura Nownes). 


Essential Basting Supplies: Curved Safety Pins, Kwik Klip Pin Closer, and Pinot Grigio

Meanwhile, I'm just excited that the basting is behind me and I get to start quilting tomorrow!  I am not 100% sure how I'm going to quilt this one, but I do know that I'm going to start by stitching in the ditch along all of the non-black patches and along the borders.  I haven't decided whether I'm going to do that with black thread or with monofilament nylon "invisible" thread.  My new Westalee ruler foot and quilting rulers finally showed up a few days ago, so I'll probably want to test out some ruler work on this quilt.  Stay posted!

I'm linking up with WIPs on Wednesday at Esther's blog.  Have a great week.

The Beast Has Been Basted! Onwards to the Quilting!

A Sea of Safety Pins

There are about 730 size #1 safety pins more or less evenly spaced throughout my 70" x 105" Drunken Dragons quilt now.  I tried to be careful to keep the layers perfectly smooth, straight, and flat while I was pinning, ever fearful of ending up with those pleats and puckers on the backing side after machine quilting.  I even flipped Anders' Froggy Quilt of Many Colors over to try to get pictures of the pleats and puckers and knots that I'm trying to avoid this time, and you know what?  I couldn't even FIND them!  I know they're there, but evidently the "oopses" weren't as bad as they seemed at the time.  That's encouraging, right? 

Kwik Klip tool and Size #1 Curved Safety Pins

A quick word about pin basting: as far as I'm concerned, the Kwik Klip tool is absolutely mandatory for this task.  It costs about $7, and it's a wood handled tool that looks sort of like a blunt awl with grooves around the metal end.  It's used to lift the pointed end of the safety pin away from the fabric and close the pin without scratching and poking your fingers.  Even if you managed not to stab yourself closing pins without the tool, you would still have extremely sore fingertips after so many hundreds of pins.  This tool is worth its weight in gold, and you can get one here if you can't find one at your local quilt shop.  I use curved, nickel-plated, rust-proof size #1 safety pins to baste my quilts, and I try to evenly space them about 3" apart throughout the quilt.  I was careful not to put pins too close to the seam lines between blocks, because I'll be quilting "in the ditch" right along those seams lines with my walking foot to stabilize the quilt before I do any other quilting.

I'm also planning to attempt quilting in the ditch along the curved circle seam on each block, but that's going to have to be done free motion, with the feed dogs down, so I don't have to wrestle with turning the quilt 360 degrees for every circle. 

Variegated Machine Quilting Threads I will NOT be Using, YLI & King Tut

Which brings me to the Thread Question.  This is going to be my first quilt using nylon monofilament "invisible" thread in the needle.  I briefly considered some of these lovely variegated machine quilting threads that I had in my stash, but then I noticed that they were all 40 weight threads and I remembered all the reasons I had opted to go with invisible thread this time:  Heavy decorative threads might look great with my fabrics, but they will draw attention to every quilting hiccup or oops, and I'm very much a beginner at free motion quilting, so there are bound to be plenty of them.  Also, as I discovered on past projects, the fancy quilting designs that are digitized to stitch automatically with my machine's embroidery module tend to look bulky where the design backtracks to get from one place to another, and you can get little bumpy knots on the back of the quilt at points or places where the design stitches over itself too much.  I usually prefer natural fibers, and had an initial aversion to invisible "plastic" thread -- but Harriet Hargrove and Diane Gaudynski, arguably the most accomplished machine quilting experts around, both have used the invisible nylon monofilament thread in their award-winning quilts, and they recommend it for beginners.  If it's good enough for Harriet and Diane, it's good enough for me!


In my research on this thread, I found that most quilters use invisible nylon thread in the needle only, and recommend a 60 weight cotton embroidery thread in the bobbin.  I have heard wonderful things about Aurifil Mako 50 weight cotton thread for both piecing and quilting, which is supposed to be combine the benefits of 50 and 60 weight threads, but none of the shops local to me carry Aurifil and I wasn't about to order it online since I want a color that will virtually disappear on the Scrabble label fabric (I appliqued the label to the quilt backing prior to layering and basting so it will be quilted in and never come off, but I don't want to see contrasting quilting thread running all over the scrabble tiles).

Boring Threads I WILL Be Using: SewArt, YLI, Bottom Line & Mettler

I went to my local Bernina dealership, and I bought both a 60 weight Mettler cotton embroidery thread and a 60 weight polyester thread, The Bottom Line, that Superior Threads developed for machine quilter Libby Lehman.  I really just wanted the 60 weight cotton, because that's exactly what Diane Gaudynski's book says to use in the bobbin with invisible thread in the needle, but the two salesladies at the dealership are also quilters and they were pushy and insistent about the polyester thread.  They were trying to be helpful, but they made me feel like I was disrespecting my quilting elders if I didn't opt to do it their way, and the same ladies gave me attitude when I came in to buy more #1 safety pins after I ran out of them earlier this week.  You know, the raised eyebrows and the barely audible sniff of disapproval as they checked me out.  Apparently THEY use the larger #2 pins and they work just fine for them.  Maybe they use a thicker, loftier polyester batting instead of the thin batts I use, who knows?  The thing is, there is no one "right" way to do any of this.  Some quilters prewash fabric, some use it straight off the bolt.  Some starch, some don't.  There are raging debates about every marking product out there, and each quilter needs to try different things to find out what works best for him or her (yes -- there ARE he-quilters out there, too!).  The way I navigate the minefield of conflicting options is to seek out those quilters whose work I most admire, and find out what products and techniques they are using.  I didn't mind buying both threads this time, because it's possible that my sewing machine will prefer one over another, and what doesn't get used on this quilt can go into my stash for a future project.  But I have had similar experiences in several other shops, where the mostly older salesladies who have been sewing for decades were not able to set aside their own values and preferences in favor of the customer's needs and the profitibility of their employer.  When I was shopping for fabric for my very first quilt, the quilt shop ladies tried to talk me out of buying the more expensive (and exciting!) batiks that I was drawn to -- they felt that I should be shopping in the clearance fabric section until I was more experienced, and told me so!  My point in mentioning all of this is that there is a huge opportunity for quilt shops and machine dealerships to improve their profitibility with some basic sales training for their staff.  If I had the option of another shop nearby, I wouldn't go back to this one at all.  Okay -- off my soap box!

Another note about sewing with the invisible thread: On the advice of my experts, I did lower my needle tension when I used this thread for my invisible machine applique.  I put a lightweight cotton embroidery thread in the bobbin, matched to my background fabric, lowered the top tension by one, and used the built-in invisible applique stitch on my machine, with some minor length and width adjustments.  I also put the invisible thread on the thread stand attachment that I bought for embroidery threads, instead of using the horizontal spool holder on the machine.  Using a free-standing cone thread stand would be another option, but this thread benefits from a little extra breathing room as it comes off the spool and travels to the tension disks to prevent it from kinking up and misbehaving.

My espresso machine is fixed and running smoothly again, thanks to my "handy" husband, so all is well again in my caffeinated world.  Today I've got some errands to run and phone calls to make, and Anders has his first Suzuki violin lesson this afternoon.  I'm hoping to sneak in 30 minutes of sewing time either today or sometime tomorrow.  I'll post more pictures once the quilting adventure has begun.  Have a wonderful weekend!

Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Basting?

The First Pins are In!

After procrastinating and worrying about it all week long, I finally got the Drunken Dragons quilt layered yesterday and began pin basting.  There are only 9 pins in the quilt so far, and about 500 to go, but at least it's a start!

I had difficulties with the ironing and starching of the quilt top and backing, which I was doing on a regular ironing board with Niagara spray starch and lots of steam.  I am a child of the Permanent Press generation, and I have no experience with starch.  No, scratch that -- I once attempted to launder and starch my husband's dress shirts, and he asked me never to do so again because people would make fun of him if he went to work looking like that.  So I ended up creating all kinds of distortion and stretching with my bungled pressing and starching process, and my mom came to the rescue and helped me get everything nice and flat again afterwards.  I think the problem was that the weight of the quilt top was pulling and stretching around the tapered end of the ironing board, because I had a series of "bubbles" at regular intervals going down the center of the quilt top and backing, each bubble uniformly the size and shape of the ironing board tip.  Maybe I shouldn't have used steam?  Maybe I was using too much starch at once, getting everything too wet before pressing?  Ideally, I think that job would have gone better on a larger rectangular surface, like if I wrapped the top of my cutting table with heat proof padding like a drapery workroom table.  Next time!

Backing Centered and Clamped, Wrong Side Up

So, once I had the quilt top and backing all flat and square again, the next step was to layer the backing, batting, and quilt top, and secure the layers together with safety pins in preparation for machine quilting.  I was really dreading this step from past experience and less-than-perfect results, so I did some research into how other quilters approach layering and basting for their quilts.  Some people will tape the backing down on a clean, smooth floor and crawl around on their hands and knees to do the basting, but with a quilt as big as mine I'd have to crawl ON the quilt to get to the middle, which would definitely cause shifting, not to mention back and knee pain.  Others recommend doing it on a raised table, in sections, which is what I've done before, and what I am doing this time.  The first thing you do is center your backing wrong side up on your table, smoooth it flat, and clamp it in place with binder clips from an office supply store.  Last time I did this, I was following directions that instructed me to "stretch" the backing until it was "taut" as I clamped it down, and I stretched it so tightly that, when the clamps were released, the backing pulled back immediately, creating reverse distortion.  That's probably a contributing factor to the little pleats and tucks I see here and there on the back of Anders' Froggy Quilt of Many Colors.  So, this time, I followed the advice of Diane Gaudynski and Harriet Hargrave and used starch for the first time on the quilt top and backing with the final pressing, and instead of stretching the backing within an inch of its life, I just smoothed it out enough that I didn't get ripples when I ran my hand over the fabric.  Hopefully I'll get better results this time.

A word about my table: My cutting table is about 30" tall, with a 72" x 54" surface.  Bigger is not better, in this case.  I want my husband to rebuild it so it's only 36" wide, because I'm having to reach too much to get at the center of the table.  It is also taking up too much real estate in my studio, which I'm planning to completely reconfigure this summer for a more workable floorplan that can accommodate a desk with a computer near my sewing machine.  I find I'm using the computer more and more in my sewing, not just with the embroidery software, but to access online manuals, sewing blogs, tutorials, etc.  I also like to set one of the boys up in my room sometimes when they have a school project to work on that requires a lot of concentration, and a little computer desk would be perfect for that as well.

Batting Smoothed in Place Over Backing Fabric

Back to the project at hand!  Once the backing was centered and secured with clamps, I smoothed out my batting on top.  I ordered 3 1/4 yards of 96" wide Hobbs Tuscany Collection Silk Batting, so the length is almost the same as I cut my backing fabric but the batting is about 20" wider.  For layering purposes, it would have been easier to fold the batting in half twice and center it on the table, like I did the backing, but then I'd be cutting 10" strips off each side of the quilt.  This batting isn't cheap, so I lined up one edge with the edge of the backing fabric and all the excess batting is hanging off the back of the table, to be trimmed off once basting is completed.  That way I'll have a 20" wide strip of leftover batting that can be used for table runners, placemats, or other small projects.  I suppose I could have cut the excess 20" off first and then centered the batting over the backing fabric, but I heard a small voice of irrational fear whispering, "what if you accidentally cut off too much?" 

By the way, why am I using silk batting?  I have wanted to try silk batting ever since I took a hand quilting class with Dierdra McElroy of Roxanne International several years ago.  She passed around a hand quilted sample with silk batting, and it was just the snuggliest, softest, lightest thing you could imagine.  Wendy Sheppard raves about how well this particular silk batting does for machine quilting, remaining soft and drapable no matter how densely she quilts it, so I decided to give it a try.  The manufacturer says to expect approximately 5% shrinkage with this batting.  It's actually a 90/10 silk/poly blend that can be quilted up to 3 1/2" apart, and the washing instructions are "hand wash in tepid water and dry flat."  Hmm...  I don't do hand washing, but my fancy washing machine has a hand wash cycle that should do the trick.  The "dry flat" part may be more of a challenge, but maybe I can get away with machine drying it on low heat, delicate cycle?  Maybe I can at least partially machine dry, and then find someplace in the house where I can lay it out flat over towels, where the dogs can't get at it?  We'll see. 

No more tangents!  Back to my project!

All Three Layers, Ready for Basting

Finally, I centered my quilt top over the backing fabric and batting.  The seamlines on the quilt top made it easy to find the centers of each side and get everything nice and straight.  As you can see, the backing and batting are quite a bit bigger than the quilt top.  Most instructions tell you to just make sure your batting and backing are 2-3" bigger than your quilt top on all sides.  Again, the fear of "I cut it twice and it's still too short" prevented me from cutting off the excess backing and batting fabric prior to layering and basting.  I smoothed the quilt top out over the batting as best as I could, and started putting curved safety pins through all three layers, starting at the center of the quilt and working my way out towards the edges.   

Curved Safety Pins for Basting and Kwik Klip Tool

I'm using nickel plated, non-rusting, Size #1 curved safety pins, and I use that Kwik Klip tool to close the pins, to reduce sore fingers.  By the time I'm finished basting this quilt, there will be at least 500 safety pins in it, spaced about 2-3" apart. 

Now that I'm going over all of this in my head again, I'm glad I have less than 10 safety pins in the quilt so far, because I want to double check to make sure that the appliqued Scrabble label on the quilt backing is completely underneath the quilt top, so I won't cut part of it off when I trim off the excess backing fabric.  It would be REALLY ANNOYING to spend hours pin basting the entire quilt and then have to take all the pins out, shift the layers, and start over again!