Baby J quilt progress update

I bought some tape! This means it's time for disasters in spray basting version 2.0. I definitely worked out some bugs this time, but a couple new problems have popped up!

I think my biggest issue with this is the minkee that I chose as a backing, but I managed to get it taped down on my living room floor mostly flat, and not very stretched out. THIS time I opted to spray baste in tiny sections. I did not take any pictures, but I basically laid out the backing on top, peeled back a few inches, then sprayed, stuck, smoothed, and peeled back the next part. It worked much better than spraying a giant top mounted on my design wall. 

Then I took my sandwich to the ironing board to set the spray baste with some heat. 

Next up I "stitched in the ditch" on all the longest straightest lines of the quilt. I decided to use red thread in my bobbin and invisible thread on top. This was going amazingly until I rolled my chair over a part of the quilt which was on the ground. The result: 

A three inch wide gash in my top! 

At this pint, I was ready to say forget it and pour myself a big cup of rum and coke and then take a nap instead of sewing. And then I thought if the cute little boy who has been waiting since before he was born to get this damn blanket and I soldiered on. 

I opted to fray check the area because I'm fresh out of fusible interfacing and just zigzag right over the tear. 

On the front it took me a minute to find it. 

On the back it's slightly more obvious. :/

About an hour later I had all my ditches stitched, including around the outside border. WOOHOO!! I can cut off the ugly backing now! I realized halfway through lopping off the fourth side, I'm not supposed to do that yet. Eff. That is supposed to be done AFTER I do the free motion quilting, so that I have something to hang onto when I'm quilting around the edges. :/ wellll, next time I'll remember. 

And THEN I flipped the thing over. I have two pretty decent sized crinkles in my minkee. :( and no idea how to fix them. I'm leaving them and hoping that they will blend some once I get some designs in there. Cross your fingers it works out! 

And this is where we end the day. Because I really don't have any idea how to put my free motion foot on my machine. Way to go, Katie. 

Here's the biggest shot I can get of the top, without taking it back out to the living room floor. Yay tiny spaces.