Sew Awesome: Avoiding Basting, Part I

My head has been in the clouds lately. It's lovely.

Each quilt is a kind of experiment, a chance to try new techniques and learn new tricks. So far Mumu has been coasting comfortably on my prior knowledge. It's time to try something crazy.

So crazy it just might work.

The view from my window

My hatred is of basting is well-documented. Why not take this opportunity to find a way out of (or at least around) it?

After surprising success in stitching the batting directly to the strips as they are being joined in my small Christmas projects, I decided to try it large-scale.

I had 9 panels of Mumu (wait, what?): 3 made of blocks, and 6 of sashing. I laid out the batting (Quilter's Dream 100% cotton, high loft) and smoothed it all out. Then I placed the center panel down the middle. I laid a strip of sashing on top and pinned it to the batting.

There was a moment of dismay as I noticed the sashing appears to be a slightly different color than the white I used in the blocks. Paranoia ensued; did I accidentally use a different color? But it's so slight that maybe I can chalk it up to different batches. Arg.

I sewed all three pieces together using the walking foot. A little ironing and...

...not a disaster! So I pressed on...(okay, pun intended). I continued in this way until all the pieces were attached.

I would never try this method if I wasn't 100% sure about the layout. Ripping out these stitches would be a serious pain.

Yay, the experiment worked!! The top is complete and now it's attached to the batting too. If I can get the backing on there without wrinkling, I'll have a happy new way to baste.

This quilt is going to be huge (about queen-sized).