How to Baste a Quilt on a Longarm Machine

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve had trouble mastering the baste setting on my Grace Qnique longarm. I’ve finally decided to learn how to use this handy setting on my Qnique 21 as I baste my Eye of Calm goddess quilt. See how this setting works and find lots of tips for using it in this video:

Click Here to find the water soluble thread I use for machine basting. This thread washes out completely after your quilt is complete. It’s much easier to use water soluble thread for basting so you don’t have to worry about ripping out the basting stitches as you quilt your quilt.

You can also check out my Grace Qnique 21 here. I love this super sized longarm machine and how fast I’m able to quilt my projects now. I only had to advance my goddess quilt once through the frame and it was ready to quilt!

Learn How to Use the Baste Setting

I struggled to use the Baste setting before because I didn’t understand how it worked. When set to “small” baste, the longarm will make a stitch every 1/2 – 3/4-inch. That’s a very long stitch and I had to loosen my top tension a bit so the water soluble thread I’m using wouldn’t break.

I think the main reason I struggled to use this setting is because I was expecting the machine to make more stitches. But it won’t make another stitch until the regulator knows you’ve moved the machine over 1/2-inch. That’s a very long pause before the needle moves again and it takes a bit of time to get used to it.

The size of the basting stitches for this setting are as follows:

Small Baste – 1/2 to 3/4-inch long stitch

Medium Baste – 1 to 1 1/4-inch long stitch

Large Baste  – 1 1/2 to 1 3/4-inch long stitch

Sometimes the stitches will be a bit closer together, sometimes a little further apart. At first I stuck with the Small Baste setting, then I remembered an issue I noticed in Dream Goddess. On this quilt, I’d basted using the setting 4 stitches per inch, which was roughly 1/4-inch long stitches. In some places, this created noticeable lines on the quilt where the basting slightly creased the fabric.

Now I don’t think it’s necessary to baste stitch this densely. If you think about pin basting, we typically secure the quilt every 3-4 inches or so.

So I finished up the basting on Eye of Calm with the Medium Baste setting and that secured it just fine. I plan to baste my next quilt on the Large Baste setting to see how it compares. Now that I know how this setting works, I definitely plan to use it more often!

Let’s go quilt,

Leah Day

More Frame Quilting Friday Videos

7 Reasons Why I DO Want and Need a Longarm

Speedy Spiral Quilting Design

First Stitches on the Grace Qnique 21

How to Set Up the Q-Zone Frame

Quilting My First Quilt on the Q-Zone Frame

Finishing a Quilt on the Q-Zone Frame

Quilting with Rulers on the Q-Zone Frame