It nearly killed me !

Three full hours basting that quilt !  Thread basting, because I still think it's the most stable for a big project....

Alone....

.......not an Outlaw in sight !  (that's our quilting group in Oklahoma)

I called down to the senior center yesterday and asked if I could use a room to baste a quilt.  She said anytime between now and next Wednesday.  I said it'd only take about 2 1/2 hours........"oh, then you can come tomorrow afternoon !"

Hooray ! 

I gathered my things at noon today, and went down to find that I had a whole, huge room all to myself.  I set up the frame, with interested onlookers and chatty comments.  I started at 1:30 and basted until 4:30.  I was dehydrated, and had to stop once to ask for water from the kitchen......no pop machine there.  My back was aching, the backs of my thighs were screaming from stretching to the middle of the frame and crab-walking as I basted from one side to the other. 

Phew. 

I had this extra-wide piece of cotton fabric that was just perfect for the back.

I miss my girls....that's you, Jo, Wanda, Terri, Mary Ellen, Mary ! 
I believe that may be the last fairly big quilt I baste until I can find help !

The good news is, though, I ran into Mildred,the fellow church member whom I've heard owns a long-arm machine.  It was afterwards, and I was grocery shopping against tomorrow's promised ice storm.  There she was and I told her how I was beat from basting, and I asked her how much she charged for her quilting.  She said, "I'm not going to tell you, because you're welcome to use the machine anytime you want."  I said, "don't say that, because I'll come !"  She said, "I mean it......the LORD has blessed me with that machine, and I let people use it anytime they like."   I said, "Mildred, you're a love........I'll CALL YOU !"

So, here I sit with the basted quilt.  I experimented and bought a polyester batting.  I haven't tried free-motion quilting with anything but a cotton batting, but Christina of the quiltalong told me to let her know how it goes if I decided to try this.  I basted it at every block seam and in the middle of each block, so it's basted less than 4 inches apart in both directions.  If I had made smaller stitches, it'd be QUILTED, it's so close.  But, I knew that I had to guard against the slipperiness of the polyester. 

I'll let you ALL know how the quilting goes when I get to it !