10 clementine quilt progress and pin basting.

I finished my Clementine quilt top yesterday!  It's the Must Stash quilt pattern from Modern Designs for Classic Quilts.  After sewing the top together I decided I had to baste it before I went to sleep last night.  I set these silly rules for myself all the time, do you do that too?  I suppose it does help me get things done when I need to.

Anyway, I finally bought a Kwik Klip the last time I was at Joann's so I tried that out for the first time while basting.  I really like it!  Basting is so hard on my fingers, so it's nice to have a tool to help me do the job.  My manicures will probably last longer now too, although my nails weren't painted this time.

If you're wondering how the Kwik Klip works, basically it grips and pushes against the open side of the pin so you can close it with minimal effort.  You hold it in one hand and use your other hand to grab the latch part and close the pin.  You can use it for removing the pins as well.

I've had a few questions on how I baste my quilts, so this might be a good time to talk about that a bit.  I almost exclusively use pins to baste!  That is unless it's a tiny mini quilt and I'm feeling lazy, then I'll break out the spray baste and an old cutting mat to catch the overspray.  My preference for pin basting mostly comes from the fact that I don't want any spray residue getting all over the carpeted floor in my sewing room.  Plus I just feel like pins are more secure for me.

I baste on top of my sewing table, laying the backing down first and smoothing it out, then the batting and smoothing again, and finally the quilt top, smoothing out the layers one last time before I begin pinning.  I have a big table so I can baste a large portion of the quilt at one time, and I always start in the center.  If there is excess draping over the sides of the table, I just pull it up onto the table surface after the center is basted and smooth the layers out again before basting the sides.

This is a much easier method for me than getting down on my hands and knees on the floor.  My back hurts after doing it that way!  I've never had issues with fabric shifting or anything using this method.  The hardest part is making sure the layers are aligned properly if they are hanging off the edge of the table, but I think that's the hardest part of basting in general.

I use a lot of pins while basting (placing them at least every 4 inches or so), and try to be mindful of how I'm going to quilt when placing them.  In this quilt, I've basted only in the sashing since I plan to straight line quilt through the blocks first.  I will remove them after the blocks have been quilted so I can then free motion quilt the sashing without them getting in the way. 

I store my pins in a milkglass jar when I'm not using them, and just stick the jar near my sewing machine so I can easily throw the pins back in when I take remove them during quilting.  Functional and pretty is always a good combination!

I hope this helps those of you who have been confused by my table basting method!  Maybe someday I'll do a more in depth tutorial on the process, but since I usually baste late at night it's hard to get good pictures!