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Basting a quilt is perhaps my least favorite thing about quiltmaking...
...but it is necessary.
Making a quilt shouldn't be about rules.
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Another Slant
By Helen Kelley
By bedtime last night, I had my quilt half basted. Today I'll have this step finished, and I can put the quilt in my frame. For two or three weeks, I'll be able to stitch quietly, listening to music, as I watch the patterns swell and bloom on the surface of my work. Basting a quilt is perhaps my least favorite thing about quiltmaking, but it is necessary, like cleaning the vegetables before I can cook a feast.
I will spend a day or two waddling around on my knees, wearing out the fabric of my jeans, as I pin, measure, straighten, and stitch with a giant needle until, finally, I can lift all three layers and plop them into my frame as a single unit, ready to go.
I've watched friends prepare quilts by other methods such as pinning the three layers together in a large frame with small safety pins; or attaching one edge of the top, batting, and backing to the roller bar of a frame, and then, quilting from the edge of the quilt, rolling it round and round as they progress. Some don't baste at all. They simply stretch the backing layer onto an enormous frame, tack it to the rails of the frame, pat on the batting, and stretch the top in place, securing it around the edges with more thumb tacks. They quilt from the edges and roll it to the center. It seems to work for them. Not me!
When I began making quilts, I tried all these ways, and I got some pretty unusual results. Now, with my work stretched out, pinned to the carpet, and carefully basted, my quilts are generally flat, straight-seamed, and square-cornered when they are finished.
Years ago, Bill took me to the Math Trauma Clinic. I can do math reasonably well, but the emotional stress of calculating numbers fills me with anxiety. At the clinic, I learned two important things: my methods for solving problems do not fit into any norm; and it's not important how a person does a thing as long as the person gets the right results. Now I have the freedom to do the things I do in the way that I do them best. I am now confident to go about my problem-solving challenges in my own way. Sometimes the way that works for me may be "the hard way." Basting quilts on my knees, inching my way around and around on the floor for hours, is not easy, but it works for me.
Sometimes my quilting friends will ask me if they are "allowed" to do things in unconventional ways. They might ask, for instance, if they can applique down the stubborn edge of a unit that is giving them trouble or whether they can use both hand and machine quilting on the same quilt. The only criterion for making a quilt, I tell them, should be personal. The simple guideline should be: "Does this work for ME?" Books and classes give us a starting point and teach us basic skills, but making a quilt shouldn't be about rules; it should be about knowing ourselves and what is most comfortable for our hands. Each of us has to decide what pleases us most, and what will best help our own vision take shape and blossom. Let's be creative and use our individual talents. When we make quilts, whatever we do is okay. What is important is that the process is satisfying and the quilt gives us pleasure.
©HK 2003
Helen Kelley is a quiltmaker, lecturer, author, and teacher from Minneapolis, Minnesota. You can visit Helen on the Internet at her website www.helenkelley-patchworks.com or email Helen at this address: helen@helenkelley-patchworks.com.
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