better basting

After starting this project, um, about 8 months ago, I finally finished one of the four chair pads I pieced together.  Glen Miller (our cat) has put two scratches into Sadie's favourite aqua chair, so protecting the vinyl suddenly became more important than before. Yet, given the urgency, I decided to do something radical: I took the time to baste it properly.

Basically I am a lazy sewer. If I think I can avoid pinning, I will. I'll even skip pressing sometimes. So basting has never been my style, and I'm not too excited by the thought of quilting AFTER the thought of basting. But this time I gave it a try and it totally won me over. I had three layers of batting (one cotton, two polyester) and three layers of cotton to contend with. Hand basting made easy work of keeping all the layers straight and I don't have a single pucker now that the piece is quilted. And it is super satisfying to pull out all the basting stitches when the quilting is done. Which makes me wonder - why did I avoid this for so long?

I think I should have a New Year's resolution to try all the proper techniques I've been skipping over all these years. It's time to learn a thing or two.