Friday, April 16, 2010

Basting Spray Review

Earlier this week I basted a charity quilt with Sullivan's Basting Spray. Despite the chunks of glue that dropped out of the very old (I bought it at least 10 years ago) and almost empty can, the results were great. My LQS recommended removing and washing out the sprayer part on the old can to see if that corrected my problem with the chunks dropping out. I haven't tried that yet. I decided that I should invest in a new can since my old one is almost empty anyway and purchased one on Wednesday, but I haven't had a chance do any more basting yet. However, I have three more charity tops ready to be basted and I will use the spray for them all. Here is a photo of the finished quilt I basted with the spray.


And here is a photo showing the back so you can see the quilting a bit better. I quilted in the ditch around the blocks and then did alternating serpentine quilting over the blocks. It's fast, simple and different than just stippling.


Black binding would have been a better choice, but I like to use my binding scraps for charity quilts and I had enough yellow, so yellow it is.

I think this spray is a great option for basting things quickly. I believe that the problems I had before with it were because I was a new quilter and had not yet learned to properly baste a quilt with pins or thread. You can't just spray the batting and slap down the backing, flip it over, spray the batting and slap down the top. You need to understand proper basting techniques and how to employ them with a new basting method. It is much faster than pin or thread basting, but can't be done properly in two minutes. I think it took me about 10 or 15 minutes for this small baby quilt to get everything laid out, sprayed and smoothed properly. I may get faster with practice.

One last comment about the basting spray: It is very sticky. Be careful where you spray this stuff. The over-spray can make unintended things sticky. If you get some on your hands, soap and water will not get it all off. It will wear off after a day or so and can be picked off like dried glue, but Goo Gone or D-Solve-It worked great for me at getting it off my fingers.

4 comments:

Barb said...

Thanks for the info....the quilt looks wonderful!!

Stephanie in Michigan said...

Lynn, looks great! You are being really productive. Thanks for all your tips on the spray basting. I think you really nailed what my problem is...I try to hurry it too much! :-)

Stephanie in Michigan said...

Oh, by the way, Lynn...I think I once said in one of my bog posts that you lived in New Mexico. It dawned on me today that Alamosa is in Colorado. I have actually been there before, so I knew that! I don't know why I always mix up Alamosa and think it's in New Mexico. Hope all is well!

Peg Collins said...

Hi Lynn! Your quilts are so cute! love that little block. re: spray basting. The secret is to LIGHTLY spray! Use about half of what you think it needs. You can always add more. one can which is about $15 will do several(5-6) large quilts or a whole bunch of small ones.
Happy Quilting! Peg