Sunday, May 15, 2011

Spray Basting Wall - How I did it

I wanted to document how I spray baste my quilts.  Before I go too far, I'll let you know that I've not made a full bed size quilt - yet, so mine are limited to space I have but I hope to remedy that sometime in the future.  For now, this is what I work with.

I have a ladder that I prop one end of my baster and the right side is held up with a nail.  Idealy they should be more even than I have them - it would help in lining things up.  This is just a sheet pinned to a 1x2 board that is about 6 foot long.
I rolled out the sheet and let it hang.  Then I used a few pieces of painters tape to hold the sides the sheets to the wall. to smooth out the draping folds you see here.

Next I pinned the backing material to the white 'basting wall'  I secured the edges with pins.   Don't look now, but I could have done a better job lining it up on top, but it's pretty close to straight with the top of the wall.  I then start spraying the backing with the spray basting.  I angle the can towards the center when spraying the edges to reduce over-spray.
Starting at the top, I start laying on my batting - smoothing it as I go.  You can re-position it if necessary, and this step is easier with 2 people. One smoothing the batting down from the top and the other holding the batting out on the bottom.
I didn't get a picture of the next step that I did, but you see the top folded in half and centered it on the batting with pins.  I then spray basted the top half only.  In the picture, you can see that I've then taken the top and started laying it onto the batting.  I then sprayed the bottom half and smooth it down.
This picture shows the whole quilt spray basted into the quilt sandwich.  I will add a few pins here and there, but I'm confident in the spray basting - so won't add a lot.  This will go on my Q-snap frame as I start hand quilting it.  So far this top measures 82 X 54 and is the larges one I've put together this way.

btw - I haven't done an extensive amount of quilting but I've tried a few different types of basting sprays.  The one I am hands down in favor of is the Sullivans Quilt Basting Spray.