Tip of the Morning Tuesday: Quilt Basting Small Quilts My Way

I am thrifty (okay I'm really cheap! There I said it, lol) and a saver of things that I can reuse or find a different use for. One of the things that I save that most people would throw away is tiny scraps of fusible web. I do a lot of fusible applique, so I have lots of fusible web scraps on hand.

I save these large plastic salad containers to keep my fusible web scraps in. I also have another container like this that I save my interfacing scraps in too. Plus the containers are great for fabric scraps...but I have way too many fabric scraps to fit in these. Using these containers is just one of my bonus tips for today, the real tip I am sharing today is coming up, so hang in there.

 I use an address label and print out labels for my containers. I add one to the side of the container so that I know what's inside when they are all stacked on the shelf. I also print one label for the top of the lid as you can see if the photo above. No address labels? You can write directly on the box with a permanent marker or use a piece of masking tape and write on the masking tape and stick it to the box instead of an address label.

You can see all the scraps of paper-backed fusible web I save; even tiny pieces. Here's the reason why...

...I take those small pieces of fusible web and iron them onto the wrong side of the fabric that I am using for the back of my small quilt. I fuse them all over the backing fabric spacing them like you would if you are pin-basting a quilt.

Here are several pieces of fusible web scraps that I fused onto the wrong side of the backing fabric. Sometimes it is hard to see those tiny pieces as they might blend into the fabric, so I take a marker and scribble on the paper so that I can see where the fusible pieces are. It's best to scribble as you go of course. I used a red scribble here thinking that red would show up, but not thinking that the cherries and dots are red and I should have used a blue marker instead. If you look closely you will see the fusible scraps with a squiggle of red. Once they are fused on your fabric, then remove the paper. Make sure you look really well and remove all the paper off the fusible pieces. Then once you have removed the paper, you will lay your batting on top of the fabric with the fusible pieces.

Smooth out your batting. Then roll up the fabric and batting together like in the photo.  

After you rolled up your batting and backing pieces together, then turn it over and carefully unroll so that the fabric is on top and the batting is on the bottom like the photo above. Smooth it out with your hands. Now you will press your fabric with the batting underneath so that the fusible scraps stick to the batting. Be extra careful if you use a polyester batting as polyester batting can melt! 
Next, take the top of your quilt and fuse fusible web scraps to the wrong side of the quilt top, just as you did for the backing fabric. Once the quilt top has been fused and you peeled off the papers, lay the quilt top on top of the batting. Smooth it out and press on the quilt top so that the quilt top now is fused to the other side of the batting.

That's it. You just fuse-basted your quilt together and it is now ready to quilt and there's no pins to deal with. You used scraps of fusible web that you would have normally thrown out.

I recommend using my fuse-basted quilt tip for small quilts like wall quilts and it's really great for bag making too when you are quilting a bag and you don't have fusible fleece on hand. For larger quilts you can use safety pins or fusible batting or those basting sprays. I find that the fusible batting and sprays don't stay fused on  large quilt that you handle a lot. They tend to come apart around the edges, plus I find it hard to iron a large quilt and batting together because of the large size. If you have luck with those products then by all means use them. They just don't work well for me.
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