Team Basting

Behold Basting Central Command:

my living room

I am one lucky quilter.

This expanse of empty floor space in our living room is large enough to baste a king size quilt.  So it's not surprising that whenever a member of my quilt guild has a quilt top to baste, everyone gathers here.





The latest project was last week, when Jean came with a quilt top that she had been working on for awhile, and was finally ready for basting.

The reason why this beautiful top took awhile?  It's all hand cut and hand sewn!

It's an amazing piece of work that's going to be a wedding gift for friends of Jean's.  Yes, they're already married.

It's not a bed size quilt.  Jean wasn't sure of the measurements, but I'd guess about 50 x 65" or so.

She used bamboo batting, which I hadn't seen before.  It's lovely, soft and smooth, but I was surprised at how heavy the quilt felt when we picked it up off the floor-- something to consider when comparing battings.

This beautiful batik was used on the back.












Since it's going to be hand quilted (!), it was thread basted, not pin basted like I usually do.

That's Jean at the top, leading discussions on a Basting Plan of Attack.  Merrilee and Jackie are experienced hand quilters, (as are Kathie and Karen, not pictured) so this was familiar territory for them.  I have enough trouble hand sewing my 1x2" labels on my quilts, so I was Head Photographer and Dessert Diva.

Many hands are helpful for a job like this!  Even so, it took a couple of hours to complete.

I can't wait to see the finished quilt!