Basting and Quilting on "My Cup Ranneth All Over the Patio"

Well I'm going to try to get the rest of the posts for this piece done so I can move on to another project that I have been working on. I only have a couple things left to post about so it should be quick, I hope!

Truth be told its been rough few months. I lost both parents in the space of about 5 weeks. Other things in my life have taken a back seat during this period. It is something we all go through and although the loss is painful, I have been incredibly blessed with two very good parents. But they didn't condone moping around, so I'm not going to do that. Onward and upward. There are art quilts to be made!


For this post I'm going to talk about how I did the basting and quilting on this piece. I have recently started using "Bo Nash" bonding agent (its an adhesive powder) to baste small quilts. It seems like a time saver and so far I have had no shifting of the three layers while quilting.

The first thing I do is lay the batt down on the ironing board. I sprinkle some of the Bo Nash powder over it, trying to reach the edges and center without making a big mess. I don't seem to need too much.

Once I have sprinkled the Bo Nash, I lay the back down on the sprinkled batt, and then press the back. The ironing melts the adhesive and the two sides stick together.

If the piece is longer than the width of the ironing board then I do it a section at a time. I sprinkle Bo Nash on just the section on top of the ironing board, then lay the back over the sprinkled section and press. Then slide the batt and back so the next section is on top of the ironing board. Lift the backing fabric to expose the batt, sprinkle, lay the back down, press, and move on to the next section. It works pretty well on small to medium size pieces.

After the back is adhered to the batt, the next step is to flip the batt/back over and sprinkle the other side exposed side of the batt. Then I lay the top on the sprinkled batt and press again. Its like shampoo, rinse, repeat. In a few minutes you're completely basted. The biggest risk is not making a mess with the sprinkling of the Bo Nash.

That blue fabric was just a demo. This is the fabric I used for the back for My Cup Ranneth... piece. I like my backing fabric to match the front of the quilt.

After sandwiching it was on to the quilting. These close ups give a view of the quilting stitches I used.

I love swirls! I put them in every quilt.

OK so the next post will be the finishing touches! Thanks for visiting my blog!