Quilting the Halloween Quilt

This last weekend I decided to try basting my Halloween quilt using Sharon Schamber's method. You can see how to do it by viewing this free video.
http://www.sharonschambernetwork.com/free_area/videos/basting/index.html


First I rolled my quilt back and quilt top onto long pieces of wood - I actually bought wood meant for pine cladding.

Here you can see the ends of the wood to give you a better idea.

The backing is unrolled to a forearm width - elbow to hand. Lay the wadding on top - mine is the black stuff. Then unroll the quilt top, smoothing it all out.

I then basted using Sharon's herringbone stitch - this is very easy to do but I couldn't do it with a thimble so it did make my right index finger very sore!

Then you move the quilt towards you over the side of the table and unroll the next portion.

I basted the whole quilt by this method which took a couple of hours. I have started quilting and am very pleased with how the layers seem to be kept together very well.

I have been thinking a lot about the actual quilting of quilts recently as it is an area where I could improve. I have always thought the quilting was less important than the piecing but now I am coming to realise that the quilting is just as important, if not more important. So I am using this quilt to pracise my skills, try to get balanced overall quilting which complements the piecing and most importantly of all make sure that the quilt hangs properly without the dreaded wavy edges.

Basting was my first area of research as I was not very happy with the safety pin method I have used in the past. After seeing Sharon's quilts in Paducah I realised there was much I could learn from this very talented quilter. I suggest you have a look at her free videos.

I will keep you updated with my progress.