Basting Day

Wow, this weekend was intense. My goal was to baste my Rehab quilt and get it ready for the FMQ Challenge. I came home from work Friday and laid the backing on the carpet. I was just going to cut the batting to size, I swear! I had dinner in the oven and we were getting ready to head over to a friend’s house for his birthday party. The batting was the exact perfect size for the backing (lucky me, I bought that extra yard!). I got so excited and just started basting the quilt right there.

What a mess! I hate basting quilts on the carpet. It is so hard to smooth everything out. I’m not going to lie: there was feet stomping, pouting, and a few swear words. Then my husband came home and helped me smooth everything out. He is very strong and wrestled his half of the quilt smooth! I ran out of basting spray in the middle of doing this. So what did I do?

I took dinner out of the oven, ran to Joann’s, bought my basting spray, ran home, put dinner back in the oven and finished basting my quilt.

Obviously, I had Quilter’s Insanity. It wasn’t until I left Joann’s that I realized what I had done. I had taken dinner OUT of the oven. I stopped everything in the middle of cooking dinner. Holy cow.

The next day, we headed to our friend’s house to help him lay the foundation for a backyard deck. The boys did that. I brought my sewing machine with me (and uh, a few accessories, see picture). Then I noticed his huge hardwood-floor dining room. I can baste quilts here!

I basted the top of my Rehab quilt. It went so quickly and was so easy to put together that I went back to Joann’s to buy more 7 more yards of batting, then went home to pick up the rest of my quilts that needed basting. And I basted. And basted. And basted! I basted 3 more quilts! It took me all day and at the end I was so sore. I worked just as hard as the boys digging holes and laying cement. I swear!

I didn’t touch my sewing machine all day! But that’s okay. I hate basting and getting all those done in one day is such a load off my mind. I found a few tips: Lay the batting down, tape it to the floor, lay the backing or top down, and then iron right there. That helped me pinpoint the places where the quilt doesn’t quite lay flat, and makes it so much easier to smooth. I also basted half the quilt at a time. I laid the top on the batting, then folded it in half. I sprayed half the quilt and pressed and smoothed just that half. Then I did the other half. Wow, that is so much easier than doing the whole quilt at once.

I had the only injuries of the day too. I ironed my toe (don’t ask) and I nicked myself with my Gingher scissors. Ouch! As I was cleaning my scissors I also pulled a doh! and ran my thumb along the blade. Ouch! But, they're basted!