Quilting Tools You Need for Basting and Quilting Your Quilt

Basting and quilting are some of the final steps to completing your quilt. Make sure you have the right supplies to finish your quilts perfectly every time.

Basting Tools:

1. Bent Safety Pins - These pins must have been a gift from the heavens for quilters! Before we had to baste all quilts with long running stitches. Now we can easily pin the three layers of material together and unclip the pins as we quilt each area.

I prefer 1" bent safety pins and have found that the nickle plated brass pins never seem to rust, even when I leave them out for months. Usually 2-3 boxes (around 600-900 pins) will set you for life, and will cover even king sized quilts.

2. Kwik Klip - It's very rare that I recommend using a unitasking tool, but in this case it's definitely needed. If you've ever tried to close 300 safety pins with your bare fingers and thumbs, you will understand the pain and discomfort that can come from this exercise.

The Kwik Klip is basically a grooved rod that you can use to press against your safety pins to close them easily. No more hurt fingers and your basting time will be cut in half with this tool!

3. Basting Spray (Alternative) - If you'd rather not use safety pins, there is basting spray available that can hold your layers of fabric and batting together while you quilt them together. I personally do not prefer basting spray, but many quilters swear by it. It's worth it to try your options and see which method you like best!

Quilting Tools:

The quilting tools you need really depend on how you plan to quilt your quilt. If you plan to quilt an edge to edge design that doesn't need marking, then you won't need any extra tools at all except the free motion quilting foot for your sewing machine, and maybe quilting gloves or fingertip grippers if you feel the need to use them.

If you plan to add a drawn quilting designs to your quilt, you will need the following tools:

1. Water soluble marking pens - These are pens that have been tested and proven to wash out of fabrics easily. I prefer the water erasable to air erasable because you sometimes never know how long a project will go before it's finished. You wouldn't want to spend 3 hours marking something just to have the lines dissappear in 3 days! Make sure to purchase multiple pens for the size of the quilt you're marking, and then buy extra just in case. They really don't last very long, so stock up so you don't have to run out and buy more in the middle of your project.

2. Quilting Stencils (optional) - Many quilters prefer to mark their quilts using premade quilting stencils. I don't have anything against these templates, but do find them limiting when designing the quilting to fit within certain boundaries of a design.

When confronted with a pattern that won't fit any of your design templates, you may feel the need to throw up your hands in frustration and then go shopping for more stencils that might fit better.

This results in an endless chain of shopping and spending expeditions for each and every quilt that could be completely avoided if you were just willing to sit down with a pencil and paper and resize the quilting pattern yourself.

Really I see that most quilters turn to these stencils not because they love them, but because they don't realize any alternative. Designing your own quilting patterns specifically for each quilt is not actually difficult. It takes more time and practice, but the end result is a 100% original design created just for your quilt.

3. Large 1" graph paper tablet (optional) - You can get these huge pads of graph paper at big office supply stores and it really comes in handy for designing quilting patterns. Simply draw your quilt (the pieced lines or appliques) on the paper and then brainstorm about how you want the quilting to look. Do you want the quilting to blend in with the background or stand out in a design all of its own?

This is my favorite part about quilting: the design process, the time where you sit and play with a quilt until you find a design you like. Many times I hear the complaint "but I can't draw!" from quilters that feel challenged by this experience. In truth, you need a very limited ability to draw because so much of your time will be spent tracing.

4. Lightbox (optional) - In order to easily see your quilt through the graph paper and to see your eventual design through your quilt to mark it, you will need a lightbox. I actually recommend building your own light box out of wood and flourescent lighting fixtures and then mounting it into a table so that it's flush with the level of your other quilting tables.

Once you have a lightbox in your sewing area, you will be surprised by all the uses it has. It's very helpful to have this box on the exact same level as your other surfaces so you can lay out your whole quilt over the surface while you're marking it.

Of course these last items on this list are entirely optional depending on your quilting level and how much trouble you want to go to when creating your quilting design. These items can get quite expensive, so make sure that you're willing to invest this amount into your tools before going shopping.

My philosophy is this:

Quilting gives you the opportunity to expand two layers of design:
Piecing AND Quilting

Creating a quilt that is beautifully pieced, but minimally quilted will just not be as satisfying as creating a quilting pattern that enhances the piecing and overall effect of your quilt.

I'm also a sucker for wholecloth quilts that are designed entirely with quilting patterns and no piecing whatsoever. Nothing opens the door to creativity more than a blank canvas!

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