Picket Fence Pin-Basting

I've had my Picket Fence quilt top finished for more than a year. What put me off finishing it was the thought of pin-basting this huge 98" X 112" quilt top!

After talking with local quilty friends about it, we figured that I would need eight tables - at any of The Villages rec centers - to lay it out. Several possible rec centers came up in conversation, but whenever a rec center room is open to quilters, it's understandable that those quilters are using the tables! Such was the case when I went to the weekly Big Cypress Quilters on Tuesday afternoon. Eight tables were not available. Even a quick stop at another rec center proved fruitless. So I returned home, determined to see the job done.

After thinking about emptying my sewing room, it occurred to me that I really didn't want to pin on the laminate floor, for fear of scratching it. So, I turned to our open living space to determine my best option.

I decided to empty the chat room. It has tile floor, and it's where the dining room is supposed to be. Since we don't have a dining room set, that space is our designated chat room with two chairs, console table, rug and silk plant.











The tile got a good mopping, and the baseboard were cleaned too - an unanticipated side benefit of doing choosing this as a pin-basting spot!

Another good thing is that the painter's tape sticks nicely to the tile. Getting the tape to adhere to plastic table tops has previously been a problem.

Backing fabric is a silver and white wide back called "Spot On Wide" by Robert Kaufman. I purchased it from my friend Lora's Etsy shop: here. I made the quilt sandwich with Quilter's Dream Cotton Request.

And so began almost three hours of crawling around on the tile. In this picture I'm showing that I'm armed with my Kwik Klip and ready to tackle this monster.

As much as possible, I sat on my bum, though after a couple hours, that got sore too. (groan)

I completely emptied two tins of one-inch safety pins - well over 1,000, I'm sure. I store my straight pins separately from my curved pins, in separate tins. Now they're all in this quilt, and I'm still a little short of them. As I remove pins, I'll have to reinsert them in another place.

It's apparent that I have my work cut out for me! Another quilt is currently in the Janome, being FMQed, and now that mongo pile-o-quilt in the front - Picket Fence - is also waiting for attention.

My summertime physical activity is pretty obvious, isn't it? Quilt-wrestling! Linda