Basting Quilts: How to Pin Baste a Quilt

Dec 15, 2010
Christine Mann

Quilt Basting with Quilter's Safety Pins - Photo by Flickr.com User Elisabeth Augusta, CC License

Learn how to use quilter's safety pins to secure a quilt's three layers together before machine quilting or hand quilting. Pin basting is easy to learn.

Quilt basting is the important step of securing the quilt’s layers together temporarily so they won’t shift and wrinkle while they are permanently stitched together. Pin basting a quilt is a popular way to secure the quilt layers for hand or machine quilting.

Pin basting isn’t the fastest way to baste, but it is easy to learn, low-tech, and involves no chemicals or fumes. Done properly, it produces a finished quilt that is smooth and wrinkle-free. A properly pin basted quilt will stay basted until you finish quilting – even if that takes months or years.

Learn about three other, faster ways to baste a quilt.

Use Quilter’s Safety Pins for Basting

While you could use any kind of large safety pin for basting, the extra-large, curved pins made specifically for basting quilts make the job much easier. They come in several sizes, from less than an inch up to 2” long, and have a bend in the middle that makes it easier to catch just the right amount of fabric on the pin. The smaller size pins make smaller holes in the quilt top than the large ones.

Make sure you only buy pins that are guaranteed not to rust. It wouldn’t do to get rust stains on your carefully sewn quilt top!

You can find quilter’s basting safety pins at fabric and quilt stores. I find that it is worth buying the more expensive ones. Cheap pins are poorly manufactured and always have at least a few flattened, wrong-size, or otherwise unusable pins.

Supply List for Basting a Quilt with Pins

Finished quilt top. The top should be squared up, pressed, and (optionally) starched before basting. Starching makes wrinkling less likely. Learn to make your own spray starch.
Quilt batting. Take the batting out of the package and let it rest overnight so the wrinkles can relax, or put it in a no-heat dryer to fluff. Learn more about quilt batting options.
Finished quilt backing. Quilting teacher Harriet Hargrave recommends starching the backing before basting to minimize wrinkling. (Heirloom Machine Quilting, 4th Edition, C&T Publishing, 2009, ISBN 978-1571202369)
(Optional) Kwik-Klip, a tool for closing the safety pins. If you need to pin a large quilt, using this tool can keep your fingers from getting sore. Some quilters use a grapefruit spoon to do the same job.
For pin basting on the floor: masking tape to fasten the quilt backing to the floor.
For table basting: large binder clips to secure the quilt layers to the table.
Quilter’s basting safety pins. How many you will need depends on how big the quilt is. A king size bed quilt takes several hundred pins.

How to Pin Baste a Quilt on the Floor

The advantage of this method is that you can lay out the whole quilt, flat and wrinkle-free, even if the quilt is very large. The disadvantage is that you will need to crawl around on the floor while you pin, which can be uncomfortable or even impossible for many quilters. Here’s how to do it:

Lay the quilt backing fabric on the floor, right side down.
Use masking tape to tape down the four corners of the backing, stretching the fabric taut, but not so tight that you distort its shape. If your floor has a pattern of square tiles or floorboards, they can come in handy for aligning the fabric. Quilts can also be basted on carpet.
Tape the backing fabric to the floor in in several places around its outside edge. Use enough tape to hold the fabric securely in place for pinning. When you are done, the fabric should be taut and wrinkle-free.
Fold the batting in half. Align the fold with the center of the backing fabric, then unfold and smooth the batting from the center out to the edges, until it lies completely flat. Don’t try to stretch the batting, or it will pull and cause puckers after quilting.
Lay the quilt top on top of the batting, with right side up. If you want to align any of the seams on the top with seams on the backing, do that now. Smooth the top from the center out until it is very flat and wrinkle free.
Starting from the center of the quilt, pin through the three layers every 3” to 4” (8 cm to 10 cm.) For very thick battings, pin closer together to minimize shifting. Thin, clingy batting can be pinned farther apart. Try to pin in a grid, so it will be easier to see and remove your pins when you quilt the layers together. Avoid pinning directly across seams that will be stitched in the ditch, or across lines where you know you will be sewing when you quilt the layers. Use a Kwik Klip or a spoon to help close the pins, if you have one.

How to Pin Baste a Quilt on a Table Top

This method lets you baste while standing up, saving yourself the discomfort of crawling around on the floor. Your local quilt store or a library or school may have tables large enough to lay out the whole quilt at once. For most people, though, basting on a table means basting part of the quilt at a time. For larger quilts, you may spend some time shifting the quilt around to reach unbasted sections. I like to baste quilts on my large cutting table. Here’s how to do it:

Fold the quilt backing in half to find the center, then lay it out on the table, right side down. Align the center of the quilt with the table’s center. Let the extra fabric hang over the table’s edges.
Smooth out the fabric, then use binder clips to clip one end of the backing to the table. Smooth the fabric again, then clip the backing to the table all around the edges. Place the clips 6-8” apart (15-20 cm). The fabric should be wrinkle-free, but not drum tight.
Lay the batting on the backing and smooth it until all the wrinkles are gone.
Lay the quilt top on the batting with the right side up. Smooth it out, then pin as described in the section above on basting on the floor.
If the quilt is too small to clip all the edges to the table, use masking tape as if you were basting on the floor.