Need tips on aligning the top and bottom through the batting

It can certainly be difficult when the quilt is larger than your available flat space! What I do is call my local church office, find out when one of the very large open areas will be completely vacant, and do it there. They're very nice about it. I take the quilt top (nicely pressed), the backing fabric (nicely pressed), batting, a roll of masking tape, lots and lots of pins, a couple of hand-sewing needles, thimbles, scissors, and a couple of spools of "I don't like this anymore" thread.

As to lining everything up with making the quilt sandwich, I spread out the backing fabric, right side to the floor, tape it down with a bit of masking tape to make sure it stays completely smooth, and then spread the batting on top of that. I line up one edge of the batting exactly with the backing fabric, pin it in place on that side, and smooth it out from there. Finally, I take the quilt top and line up one edge with the "lined up and pinned" edge of the backing-and- batting, but set it so that the quilt top edge is about 1 inch in from the actual edge of the backing-and-batting -- an inch of batting-and- backing will show. I spread it out carefully from there, and then pin it here and there. The edges and corners of the quilt top do NOT meet the edges and corners of the batting and backing, since both the backing and batting are a bit larger than the quilt top itself. Thus, you see "extra" all the way around. After adding quite a few straight pins all over, I remove the masking tape, gently lift the quilt sandwich, and flip it over to be absolutely sure there are no wrinkles or pulls and that everything is smooth. Then I flip it over one more time so the quilt top is on top, and baste -- and baste -- and baste. If the batting-and-backing is more than a couple of inches extra all around, I trim it so only an inch or two extra is left. I don't trim off all of the extra batting and backing until I have finished the quilting and am ready to bind the edges -- this keeps the edges of the quilt top from getting a bit raggedy. This system works for me.

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------------------------------------- Your backing fabric needs to be larger than the top fabric too. I always make my backing fabric about 2 inches larger than the finished top all the way around. Trying to align the top and the backing fabric with both of them being the same size is almost impossible. Not having a large enough space to lay this out is going to make it more difficult too......move some furniture, go to someone else's house, or find a clubhouse, quilt shop, somewhere .....where she can lay it all out to sandwich it. It's always nice to have a quilt buddy help you when sandwiching a large quilt. I use the quilt spray adhesive to hold the layers together and a few special quilt safety pins about 15-20" apart. Is she tying this?? or machine quilting?? There's also lots of tutorials available now on the web for quilting.

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Hey Ed, I have the blocks for that on my design wall right now for my ds. It is a really good looking pattern. Your dw can trim some of the batting if it is really a lot bigger. I tape toothpicks to the center marks of each side of my fold up banquet size table and work on centering each layer to those. Before I got the folding table I would clean the vinyl tiled kitchen floor and tape the backing to that (using the square tiles to keep everything straight) A copy of Harriet Hargrave's book has the table method all really clearly explained. HTH, Taria

Since this is only your wife's 2nd quilt and it's a king-sized batik blocks gift for your daughter, perhaps this is a good time to consider enjoying the help of a longarmer. They are not terribly expensive - probably heaps cheaper than needing the services of a wrecker truck to get you back up off the floor and a chiropractor to fix you if they do manage to hold you in an upright position. Oh my goodness, longarmers are just so wonderful; they can take a quilt that is merely nice and turn it into magnificent. Do think about it. Polly

I have done several 90" square quilts on my kitchen table which is about 40" x 48". Instead of working from the center out, I work from one corner down one long side and over one short end of the table. I put the backing fabric on the table, wrong side up and make sure the edges lay down over the sides of the table about 1" minimum. I smooth the fabric over the table top keeping the fabric edges over the edges of the table the same 1" down the long side and across the the short end or "top". Then I use binder clips (the large ones), clipping it to the table on all four sides. Next, I lay the batting on top of the backing, keeping the edge as even as possible with the backing and clip it all down with the binder clips, again on all four sides. Lastly, I put my quilt top, face up, on top of the batting/backing with the edges even with the table top down the long side and across the short end "top". I clip it all to the table on all four sides and pin baste. Once that is done, I remove all the clips and reposition the whole thing so that it is still lined up with the long side of the table but the "top" is hanging over the end of the table. I make sure everything is laying smoothly and then put the binder clips back on along that long side of the table. I then smooth out the backing, batting and top fabric over the whole table and put the binder clips on the other three sides. I pin baste everything and then reposition again but with the "top" edge even with the table and the long side hanging over the edge of the table. Make sure everything is again smooth and the backing/batting is hanging down the same distance and the top fabric lines up with the edge of the table. I put the binder clips on the "top", make sure the rest of the quilt sandwich is nice and smooth and even and then clip the other sides and pin baste. It usually takes me four "repositionings" to get the hole quilt pin basted but it really works nicely **IF** you are very Very VERY careful about getting everything smooth and even, etc. Of course, if you have access to several banquet tables or a large empty floor space, as others have posted about, then it's much easier :-))). Keep us posted on what your DW finally decides to do, OK? Always interested in hearing how others handle these issues :-). CiaoMeow >^;;^<

I use the toothpick-and-tape method, myself. It certainly simplifies matters.

ep

Ed: Congrats to your wife for tackling such a special project just the second time out. For basting, it is usual to have both the batting and the backing about 4 inches larger than the top, on each side. First of all I mark the centers if all edges, quilt top and quilt backing. Most often I use a pieced backing. For a large quilt, I use the floor. I line it up a seam with the floor tile lines. Then I center batting over that. The top is then centered over batting, again aligning a seam to the floor tile lines. I then check the seams of the top and of the backing are parallel. HTH. Pat in Virginia