Thread Basting
Thread Basting is sewing something together with large, easily removable stitches. For quilts it temporarily holds the three layers of the quilt sandwich (backing, batting, and quilt top) in place as you quilt. Once you are done quilting the basting stitches will be pulled out.
Cut the backing fabric to be 4-inches longer and wider than your quilt top.
Lay the backing fabric right side down onto a flat surface and tape it down using the masking tape.
Cut the batting to be 2 inches longer and wider than your quilt top and lay it down smoothly on top of the backing.
Lay the quilt top smoothly on top of the other two layers, right side up.
These three layers are your quilt sandwich.
Thread a curved needle with a long length of the contrasting thread. Sewing though all three layers of your quilt sandwich, take a series of 1 1/2-inch long or larger stitches with the curved needle, starting at the center of the quilt and moving out in a spiral shape. Do not tie a knot at the end of the thread, but leave a long tail which will make it easier to pull out later. The backing fabric will still be taped to the surface throughout the basting process.
Continue on with these large stitches in a spiral shape until the whole piece is basted.
Un-tape the backing fabric from the floor. The back of the quilt sandwich should look like this.
Hello,
Ah, I think this method is maybe easier than pin basting (we don’t have many pins anyway). In any case, I can clearly see the batting and the backing layers are larger than the top layer. Would you, then, proceed to quilting (aka eg. stitch in the ditch) at this point, without trimming the batting and the backing? Or would you trim the batting +backing after basting, and THEN start quilting? Thanks!
Hi Claire,
Thanks for reaching out! It’s actually correct and quite a good thing that your backing and batting are larger than your quilt top! During the quilting process, the quilt layers usually shrink or pull in a bit while they are stitched together, and if the backing and batting have already been trimmed, it’s possible that different layers could pull in more than others, leaving empty gaps or uneven edges along the border of the quilt. You can go ahead and baste and quilt all the layers together now, and trim off the excess and square up your edges after removing the basting threads!
Best,
Julianna
Hi Julianna,
Thanks for answering my question! We did try this method, and leaving the backing and bating larger than quilt top. Our problem was: when we were taping the backing fabric to the floor, there are some occasion that we did not catch that fabric because it was held taut (and thus when we were stitching, we couldn’t tell if the needle hit the floor or not, or if it did, we backed away and inevitably failed to catch the backing). Is there any way to avoid this? In the end, we had to baste quite a few of the stitches because we didn’t catch the backing fabric.
Thanks again,
Claire
Hi Claire,
Missing the backing layer can be irritating and can happen with either thread or pin basting, and I’m afraid there’s not really a “fix” for this issue! You could always use a few safety pins in the areas where you missed the backing; however, as long as you catch the backing most of the time, your quilting should still turn out fine!
Best,
Julianna