ozcountryquiltingmum

Basting frame
I have been working on Joshua's quilt as tomorrow is his birthday. I hate the basting part of the quilt, my knees and my back can't stand crawling around on the floor, so I tend to under baste as compensation and then suffer the repercussions of that when it comes to trying to machine quilt with my standard sewing machine later on.

My Mum mentioned that her craft group had copied "some quilt thing" and no-one was using it. She described it to me and I decided it could perhaps have a little holiday here.

I picked it up when I got the battery hens and yesterday I gave it a run.

It is a form of basting or quilting frame, ideally I would use it in the big space of my sewing room but the job needed doing and we were all in the house so the house it had to be.

Here are the kids playing under it, they think it would be a great cubby!

This is how it fits together

You pin the backing to the cotton tape. There are red clamps that you can see in the actual basting pic that keep it all where it is meant to be. I found it heaps easier and a lot better on my back. I had the whole thing on and basted in an hour and a half. I have all the dimensions in a machine quilting book the group lent me so yell if anyone is interested in more info, looks very easy to make yourself. It came with these size posts and the next size for a queen or bigger quilt.

I machine quilted it last night and only need to sew the bindings on-that isn't my favourite part either, but preferable to basting. Joshua's party tomorrow is 3 pm, so everyone being well enough, I should get it done.

Kids are finally improving, DS went to School today, it was the matinee of his School concert, he was a fine dalmatian dog, I took his sister in in time to perform as well, hopefully they will both be in peak condition for tomorrow night's major performance....I am just...still here-but fortunately capable of finishing a quilt.