Sharon Schamber's Pinless Basting, Part 4

And we're done! Hoorah!

I intend to quilt this immediately, but SS makes the point that it could be put away without fear of rusting. I see how that might be useful, but believe me, I'm not going to go to the trouble of making the quilt sandwich and basting it if I'm not going to quilt it asap!

Close up of the basting. The loose tail is the trailing end of a length of thread. You'll find that the traditional 18" gets used up almost immediately, so I quickly got into the habit of using long lengths of thread at a time. (Let's call it a yard at a time, and not say anything to the stitching police about how far over the length limit I was, okay?)

In order to end a length, just take a second stitch right where the first was, and leave the tail. Knot a new length and you're off & stitching again.

This is the back. I appear to have gotten the stripes pretty evenly spaced, so I think it will look okay when the binding's in place.

Incidentally, if you do fold it up and put it away, make sure the backing is showing. The backing has the small stitches, where the top has the carrying threads from stitch to stitch. Those carrying threads can catch on stuff, so it's a lot safer and tidier if those long carries are on the inside, out of harm's way.

Incidentally, that back looks good, wouldn't you say? I hope Emily likes it -- her parents specified yellow and earth tones, which I think this stripe exemplifies.

Here's the backing, close up. See how nice those stitches look? And the one diagonal stitch was done on purpose to show where the center on the top was. I got it pretty much spot on, I'm hoping!

And that's the end of my pictorial essay on Sharon Schamber's pinless basting. Pluses include being able to do it inside, sitting down, and not on a surface larger than your quilt top! Minuses include the insecurity that comes from doing something for the first time ever.

Would I do it again? Certainly for the next quilt I'm doing, which will also be small (crib size, basically) and thus manageable. But the next queen size quilt? I dunno. If I do, I'll tell you all about it when the time comes.