Shibori linen and how I pin baste

Vicki of Field Trips in Fiber shibori hand dyed a yard of natural linen for me. She split the 52" wide yard of fabric in half and dyed one half with dark blue and the other has browns and oranges. They are FANTASTIC! Many thanks Vicki! I will be using these in my linen series quilts.

I finished sewing together the backing for the teal/purple quilt at lunch yesterday. As soon as I got home after work I pressed the top so I could start pin basting the quilt. My regular readers know I am very lucky to have an 8' x 8' table in my studio. The table has two leafs so I can make the table 4' x 8', 6' x 8', or 8' x 8'. I usually keep it 6' x 8'. No crawling on the floor to pin baste for me! For this quilt I have the table opened to 8' x 8'. Here I taped the backing down and have the batting laid out on top of the backing. To smooth out the batting I use my wooden yard stick.

The quilt top

I straighten out and line up one corner and hold it down with a batting and fabric wrapped brick.

Next I gently get a bit of air under the top and line up another corner anchoring it down with another brick.

I head down to the opposite end and with a bit of air under the top, I gently move the top into position.

I then again take my softly worn wooden yardstick and from the center out, smooth the quilt. Since this quilt is improv pieces there is a lot of non-straight of the grain seams. The idea it to smooth the quilt without stretching the blocks.

The last step before pin basting is to press the layers together. Take note - press not iron - pressing with an up and down motion not ironing with a back and forth motion. I find that pressing the layers helps to keep the layers from shifting and yes I do use steam.

Here is one of the blocks before and after pressing. To me the pressing sets the quilt top into the batting.

Now I am ready to pin baste. By the time I got to this point I had to stop to go for my walk so I didn't get started pin basting until this morning. I was up at 5:10 am so I had about 35 minutes to pin. I have a little over a third pin basted. I will work on it again at lunch today and finish after work. I should be able to start machine quilting it tonight or at least by tomorrow morning. I do have to mow the grass so depending on how hot it is tonight whether I mow tonight or wait until tomorrow morning.

The design wall is so empty!

Have a great weekend!