I usually tape down the backing to my dining room table and then place the batting and quilt front on top and either spray baste, pin baste or thread baste. I generally spray and pin. It usually does the trick. Something real big goes to LA quilter.

Thanks. That sounds like a good idea. I will try it!

I stretch and pin my backing to the carpet in my sewing room. That way I can smooth the batting and top and not worry about the back moving around.

beverly

Like Gerizone....taping the backing taut to a table or several tables together is what I do. I noticed a big difference in the removal of wrinkles doing it that way.

However, you'll want to make sure you place your basting pins close enough together so you don't make new wrinkles as you push it thru your machine. Guess how I know??? ;)

Thanks for all of the ideas. I have to remind myself at times that this is supposed to be fun!! :)

Any skill or craft is only as fun as the results. There are always certain steps which are "less fun", but if one skimps on them the results of the long hours of production just aren't worth the effort.

When it comes to machine quilting--I've used the adhesive backed batting that you iron top to batting to backing, which worked ok, but you still had to pin every 4 inches or so along the outside border, and in the end, I still had a little bit of bunching in the back. I've tried pin basting which I found to be kind of a pain in that not only did I get some bunching in the back, the pins kind of get in the way when I'm quilting. My FAVORITE method is spray basting with 505. It hardly smells at all and there is never any bunching (*with one exception)
No matter what method I've used, I get the best results when I tape the backing to a table (or 2 tables, depending on the size of the quilt).
*One time when spray basting a tree skirt, I tried using just one table when I should have used 2, leaving parts of the quilt hanging off the sides--bad idea! Lots of bunching!

I tape the back to the floor using masking tape and use 505 spray when making the sandwich, but I leave some room between the pieces of tape to tuck in newspapers around the backing so as to catch any stray spray. I don't even pin anymore, and on sizes up to a large lap quilt, have had no trouble when machine quilting. Before finding out how great spray basting is, I had a couple of miserable quilts with such bad puckering (after machine quilting) that I had to cut slits in the backing so the front could lie flat. And then I had to applique motifs onto the back to cover up the slits, which worked out pretty well to look at, but was a whole lot more work than I had bargained for.