Another bit on basting

This was a single pillow project for Cottages to Castles; a gift from Suzie to the homeowner.  The mission was to center this beautiful embroidered elephant piece in a field of velvet.

It was up to me to decide: I could applique it onto the velvet, or add mitered borders.
Because the edges of the piece were uneven, and cut so close to the embroidery, I thought I'd do a better job if I turned under the least tiny bit I could, then applique it.
Also, I didn't like how I thought the nap would behave if I tried sewing the velvet on the diagonal.

To stabilize the piece on the velvet, I considered fusibles, sticky tape, and pins, but hand-basting won out.  I started basting as a quilter bastes a large quilt: in an X shape, from the center out to the corners.
After basting around the perimeter, I stabilized the vertical edges further with this stitch shown below, which I know has a name that I cannot remember- I wanted those horizontal stitches to fight against the tendency of the fabric to slip along the velvet nap.

All that basting kept the elephant perfectly in place.  I used the tip of my snippy scissors to help ease in while sewing.

After applying self-welt I decided to have a go at sewing front to back with just pins.  I wasn't sure if I'd need to baste the seams, too.  It took more pins than usual (well, usually I don't use pins at all on pillows) but it sewed up just fine.

It took extra time and care, but, everyone was very happy with this big pillow!